


Book Two of Greys - Dust

by Teacollard



Category: Original Work
Genre: Action/Adventure, Booktwo, F/M, Fantasy, Gen, Post-Betrayal, Series, angel - Freeform, demon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-02 13:29:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 12
Words: 44,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8669524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teacollard/pseuds/Teacollard
Summary: Where do you go after everything ends? Do you fall back to a life you hate or stumble forward into the unknown?After the clan's dissolution, each must decide which path to take, but there is strength in numbers and weakness in isolation.Nevaeh and Kael choose ice, though in differing ways, cold and numbing. James chooses fire, the only option he's ever known. And Jordan, she chooses dust, shadows, letting herself disappear completely...Can they survive on their own?





	1. Chapter 1

**And all foundation that we made built to last, they disintegrate.  
And when your house begins to rust, oh it's just metal and dust.**

_London Grammar - Metal & Dust_

The sky opened up sometime during the night and the clouds finally made good on their promise. The rain poured down, a freezing rain that coated my world. It seemed oddly fitting. The drops felt like needles against my skin, each hit with a sting, but slowly turned numb from the cold. It felt like the Earth was mourning with me. The cold outside mirrored me inside, the rain mirrored my tears, the darkness mirrored my mind. It would have been almost a beautiful pairing if it didn’t hurt so badly. I never knew you could feel nothing at all and yet still be in so much pain. My mind replayed the night ceaselessly, turning over each excruciating detail, torturing myself with the gravity of who I was, what I was, what my Pair was.

I remembered the fight in the woods, when James told me I was going to become a monster, that he had seen it. I remember the despair, the need to end it all. I felt that again, except this time it was worse. I had tricked myself into whole-heartedly believing I was good, that I could fight back my nature, overcome it, just to have that perfect deception shattered. I had been tricked by the only person I had ever truly believed in. I was the thing of legends, of nightmares, and there was nothing I could do about it. All the stories I had read, all the history of what Halflings were, what they had done, was me. I slowly realized more and more how everything I had ever wanted was gone, how everything I needed was gone. How I no longer had anything, nothing at all.

I stayed in the cemetery for what seemed like hours, trying not to think, trying to still my mind, hoping it would make the pain fade, but it didn’t. I could feel James there with me, sitting just as still as me, knelt on the grass catching the rain like me, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t face him. I never wanted to see him again. And then in one moment that was both wonderful and terrible, I couldn’t feel him anymore. One second he was there, his mind tearing at my own, his despair, his rage, his horror and panic swirling within me, and then he was gone, like he no longer existed, like he never had. I remember looking up with blurred eyes, but I knew he wouldn’t be there. I was alone, sitting in the dark just waiting for the pain to kill me, hoping it would.

Everything was silent apart from the hushed rain falling softly, and the stillness made me feel like I had been alone the whole time, but my mind ached from the memory of his. The torn edges of where our connection should have been felt raw, a lasting token of his parting. My knives disappeared along with James, no longer on the grass where I had left them. I knew he had taken them so I wouldn’t kill myself, at least not right then, his version of insurance on my life. I let a cold laugh climb my throat into the still air, even his kindness was cruel.

It took me a moment to comprehend what his absence really meant, like when you hurt yourself but your mind can't comprehend just how severely for a few seconds. Those seconds stretched on and on, but eventually the shock shifted to something sharper, rougher, as my mind caught up with reality, as my body recognized its newest trauma. My connection with James was gone, and not like the other times, like I was merely blocked, this was different, something final, something total. This was like something had been ripped away. It was death in a way. I had an empty feeling in my mind, a hollowness that felt cold, numb, and then the pain hit.

He had cut every last part of himself from me, precise and brutal, and it left the edges tattered and bloody. A sob choked out of me as the pain in my mind slowly grew into something physical. My chest convulsed as I clutched at it, doubling over until I felt the dead grass pricking my forehead. It felt like my heart, my soul, or whatever things like me had in them, was trying to escape through my ribcage.

            I was alone, I was abandoned. Something I wouldn’t have cared about a few short months ago now seemed a fate crueler than death. Worse than being abandoned by the clan, was being abandoned by James. Even though I wanted him gone, even though I couldn’t bear feeling that traitor, that liar near me, I couldn’t deny that a part of me was missing, a part of me was dead. He might very well be the demon he had accused me of being, but he was still my Pair, something I couldn’t ignore. And the pain grew. If my nature had stolen my soul, then this desertion, this betrayal had stolen my spirit, crushed my will. That’s when I started walking. I couldn’t stay there, in the cemetery where my life had unraveled. I had to leave, go anywhere, anywhere but where I was.

            I stumbled to my feet and walked without a destination in mind. I had nowhere to go anyways. But even still, the pain followed, it met me at each crossroad, it stayed by my side down each alley. It was with me every step of the way, growing stronger, getting a tighter and tighter hold on me, digging its claws into me and compressing my chest, trying to squeeze the life from me. Sometimes I stopped, I had to, it hurt too much to walk. I had to lean against whatever was near, close my eyes, and just breathe, just focus on the air entering and leaving my lungs and try to rid the unbearable pain from my mind. Once I heard James’ voice in my head, when he had dryly suggested that maybe he should curl up in the gutter and die instead of go on, but thinking of that night only made the pain worse. Everything made the pain worse. Each step brought on more, like no matter what direction, I was walking into it, like a freezing wind cutting into me, finding my most vulnerable areas and burrowing into my skin, my mind, deeper and deeper.

Soon I couldn’t take it anymore. I hated my emotions, I hated that I couldn’t seem to bury them, to beat them, to kill them. I hated that they were stronger than me, that they were killing me. I was used to being able to control them, I had always been able to lock them away so well they didn’t exist, but now when I needed to the very most in my life, I couldn’t. What a sick joke. I was drowning in my emotions. I had never learned how to live with them, so now I was going to die by them. I couldn’t even name what I was feeling, not accurately, not really, it just hurt. It burned. I just wanted the pain to go away, I needed it to. I just wanted to live my life, however short it would be without these razors tearing at me, trying to skin me alive, ripping me apart slowly.

At some point during my wanderings even my numbed mind realized I needed a plan, to decide on a way to eliminate the highest number of my problems in one sweeping motion, the most dangerous of them, and maybe even do some good along the way. I might be a monster, but I still had enough control to do good, even if I wasn't, at least for a time. I still had enough of my humanity to make my life worth something before my nature overcame me, before I killed myself. Some part of me was telling myself that maybe if I did good, I would feel better, maybe it would lessen the pain, the fire. It was a selfish reason, but it was the best I could come up with. I just needed the means. I just needed the opportunity, the guidance, the power.

If I was a Half then I would use that power to my highest advantage. I would kill as many others like me as I could, and when I finally met a foe I couldn’t defeat, then my largest problem would be solved and I would die. If I began to turn before then, if I couldn’t control my desires before I found an opponent worthy, then I would kill myself. I promised myself that. I had done it before, I could do it again. At the very first sign of my blood winning the battle, at the first glimpse of my humanity, whatever was left of it, crumbling, I would take my own life. But in the mean time, I would send as many others to Hell as I could.

            I would begin a count, a keepsake of the evil I had slain. It would serve as a reminder to hold out against my nature for as long as I could.  I saw a shattered bottle in one of the dim alleys I walked, its edge shone in an alluring way, calling to me. I grabbed a shard of it without thinking. I felt naked without my knives, at least this was something similar. As I thought about my count, my tally, an idea came to me. I pulled the glass from my pocket, testing its edge. It wasn’t like my knives, but it would do. I carefully put the sharpest part to my skin, on the back of my hand, just above my knuckles…just like James had done all those years ago. I pulled the makeshift blade over my skin, but I didn’t push hard enough and it only left an ugly red line. I tried again on the same spot and finally split the skin. It was strange how little it hurt. I had expected something more, but I still felt a sense of accomplishment; one down, one to go, one mark for each of the Darklings I had slain in the cemetery. They would be the start to my tally, the first marks on my body to show the number of damned I had sent home. I repeated the process right above the first, making a second line parallel to it.

            My blood ran from the rain, but it slowly lessened and then stopped as I continued my walk. Somehow even just the small plan I had in my mind, and the fact that I had already started, that my tally had already begun, made me feel a little calmer. I had my plan, the next thing I needed was a path. I didn’t want to be controlled, I didn’t want to be someone’s weapon, but I needed to know where to begin, how to begin hunting others like me. And I needed power, I needed more than just training if I was going to be as deadly as I could be.

            I didn’t have the time to find another clan. I couldn’t waste months training with a new group, hiding my bloodline, hoping they wouldn’t ask where my old clan was, why I was alone. I had no idea how long I could fight my nature, how long I had before I took myself out or lost my life to another, but I knew I didn’t have time to play politics with a new clan.

            Suddenly, I knew what the answer was, it came to me out of the darkened sky, but all the pieces fit. I knew what to do.

The door opened and light splashed onto the front steps. I had been walking in the dark for hours, and my eyes had adjusted, now the light burned me, blinding me. The dark silhouette before me stayed silent as I swallowed back the sick feeling, the bile and bitterness that had made their home at the back of my tongue.

“I want to reconsider your offer.”


	2. Chapter 2

**All alone he turns to stone, while holding his breath half to death.**

**Terrified of what's inside, to save his life he crawls like a worm from a bird.**

_The Used - The Bird and The Worm_

 

She sat before me wet and beaten and bloodied, shivering with something more than the cold, trembling like something was inside her wishing to be free. She no longer looked beautiful to me, she looked dead. And that’s precisely what she was asking me to do to her; kill her. Not permanently, but still. I was shocked, which was a rare phenomenon for one as perceptive as myself, with as much wisdom and experience and prowess at understanding lesser beings. I had been sure when she left that she wanted nothing less than to be a hybrid like myself, and yet not even twelve hours later she was back, begging for the gift she had previously spurned. She wasn’t necessarily begging in the truest form of the word, but if she was as similar to my old partner as my observations seemed to attest, I assumed this was the closest to begging she had ever been, but I would change that. I knew how to make those like him, like her, beg. Pride can be such a tedious, painfully pointless attribute.

Though there was nothing I wanted more than to taste her blood, to see what such power felt like as I drained it from her warm body, I undoubtedly wasn’t the hasty type. Caution is an asset of my breed, so naturally I wanted all the information before I made a decision, even if the correct choice seemed obvious. Some call it paranoia, I call it care.  Regardless, I would not dare make a hurried decision, especially if certain hurdles were still in place, if certain consequences would kick down my door with an ugly sneer and a frustratingly strong Sign at his fingertips. How I hated fire.

            The shadow of the woman before me no longer had fire in her eyes, or a look of defiance on her face. She had lost her will, which excited me. It was shocking how different she could look now from the masterpiece I had seen before me just hours earlier. She looked like a different being, like a doll. Her eyes were wide and empty where before there had been something worthy of envy, something deserving of fear. She looked like someone had taken the light from her, the life, like she was already bloodless, just waiting for my venom to take hold and bring her back. Sometimes she cringed, but she wasn’t injured, I would have been able to smell the weakness. Usually the cringe came when she wasn’t even moving, but sitting completely still like she was now. Her injury was something else, something deeper, something in her mind then. I absently wondered if she was poisoned, that would explain her sudden change of heart, self preservation, or maybe it was just James, he was similar to a poison for most people. He was toxic and maybe she wasn’t as immune as I had initially believed.

I suppose even that was in my favor. She had been annoyingly strong before, it would have been difficult to break her, entertaining yet difficult, and I was tired of putting so much effort into people just to have them forget my labors for them. I gave so much to others, like I had to James, yet he left when he should have been grateful. Some are meant to be owned by others, some are better off that way. And it isn’t cowardice to prey on the weak, it’s merely smart, advantageous. One should always take the opportunities that are presented. I had learned to not go after those like James though, not anymore. They were prone to violence, to attacking their masters and I was content living forever, building my legacy, my kingdom. Ones such as James may be more powerful of weapons, but they are also more difficult to collar and friends to irrational actions. I had learned my lesson against taking in those like James.

Sure, at times my servants bored me, at times death seemed an awfully new and exciting adventure, but others, like now, I was glad I was still alive to grasp the opportunities life so often offered me. Whatever had happened to Jordan would only make her a more malleable tool for me, more manageable, which is what I wanted. I had almost feared her before, her strength, her anger, but there was nothing to fear before me now. I felt my teeth sharpen behind my lips, tasting the tartness of my venom.

            I sat before her and patiently waited for her to speak again. She hadn’t said anything since her request that my offer still stand. I sat and watched her instead. The big, empty eyes as they looked back at me, her slumped shoulders, the shallow cuts on her hand that she kept rubbing. They must have been fresh, I could still smell her sweet blood. Finally my tolerance wore thin and I broke the dragging, dull silence.

“You want what I can give you because you want the power, or you no longer want your humanity? I can see you are hurting, tell me, did James hurt you? He does that, nasty little habit of his.”

I spoke calmly, not wanting her to know how interested I truly was. At first I thought she wouldn’t reply, she just continued to stare ahead as if I hadn’t even spoken, but then her eyes came to mine and I saw something there. A spark of anger had replaced the nothingness, and I was oddly relieved she had a bit of life left. The last thing I wanted were the broken remains of one of James’ toys. I wanted to be able to have a little fun, conquer _something_ at least, I just didn’t want the full project of breaking someone as stubborn as he had been. His past had made him controllable for a short time, his upbringing made him crave another’s rule, another’s punishment, but then he had grown out of it, grown into his own little person. I was hoping that Jordan’s current state would allow me to control her as well, though hopefully a more long-term agreement could be negotiated, or forced.

When she spoke, her words surprised me.

            “James is gone and I want everything your opportunity can give me.”

She sounded just as determined as she looked now, though her breath still came in shallow, almost painful bursts. Emotions could be so physically draining.

            “James is dead?”

            He wouldn't leave her unless death separated them, I knew that much. I worked hard to keep my voice even; he was gone, meaning he couldn’t be a looming shadow over my head, a boogey man I had to fear in case I overstepped into some sacred moral ground he found offensive. It was wonderful to feel free of him, to have him gone. I had hated him for years, though I knew he wasn’t someone I could make a move against. And now I didn’t have to. The cherry being that I had his Pair instead, all to myself, to play with and use to bring about my reign even faster. He couldn’t stop me anymore, ever again.

            Jordan made a movement that seemed close to a stiff nod, before her eyes dropped to the fire crackling on the far wall again.

Now it all made sense to me, she would be this lost, this helpless without her Half, her Pair. I had to hide my glee. James was a thorn in my side, he had been ever since he left. I’d almost thought my paranoia and fear of him were driving me to madness at one time, but a mind as great as my own couldn’t be crippled merely by one man. And now Jordan, like a lamb brought to me. She would be such a wonderful weapon, with no protector, no ties to anyone. She could be mine alone and I wouldn’t have to fear anything ever again. James was her only true connection to this world, and his clan had foolishly kept her from others, ‘training her’, shielding her. Silliness. Now that her only bind was gone, she could be all mine, with no one looking after her, no one even knowing of her existence, her identity, her face, no one caring. I would have the most powerful weapon of all, made that much sharper by her secrecy. I just had to play my hand right.

“I know your Gift. If you want to see what to expect, I have nothing against you coming into my mind. I have a lot to show and tell.”

I smirked as I spoke, letting my fangs lengthen, letting my voice drift over into something more alluring. The charm worked, and she returned a smile, but it was scarily similar to James’. A curve on the lips but nothing more, nothing in the eyes, it made her look oddly disconnected, like two different people sharing the same face.

            I ignored my interpretation of her smile and focused my mind on the story I wanted to show, of my past before and after my transition. I threw in a little of James as well. I chose wisely, wanting to get as much information about their relationship as I could. I felt something like a breeze, just a slight stir of the air, too light for a Human to detect, and then her face took on a faraway look and I knew she was seeing what I was in my mind’s eye.

 

◆

 

_There was a man, an older man with silver hair. He had someone bowed before him, and from the coppery color I knew it was Jev. The man touched Jev’s shoulder and he stiffened before straightening. Three other men materialized behind the first as he spoke in a deep voice._

_“Tell them why you want to desert your kind to join ours. Tell them what you offer us.”_

_Jev’s face took on mild surprise, but the silver-haired man nodded, prodding him on._

_“As I’ve told you, I need the power. I have strong enemies and I don’t want to fear anything from this world or any other. I…I need the protection your transformation can offer me. In return I offer you three years of servitude, I’ll be in your debt.”_

_I felt a bitterness come from Jev’s mind as I saw the memory, and I could feel how difficult it had been for him to submit to these creatures. The silver-haired man didn’t seem satisfied though and a frown pulled at the corners of his mouth._

_“True, but why do you have such powerful foes after you? How did you possibly get so deep in the mess you now find yourself in? We don’t long for any more trouble than your kind already gives us.”_

_The man still spoke calmly, slowly even, but he already knew the answers to his question. He was merely making Jev say them in front of the others. Jev’s eyes flashed but he kept the rest of himself under control as he spoke._

_“I won’t cause you any greater risk, nor will my kind. I have difficulty controlling my nature. You could say I have some anger problems. I don’t just want the power of your kind…I need the control too. I can’t afford to make the same mistakes again. You could say my security has taken a recent blow. I had a powerful card which stopped many from thinking of coming for me, but now that card is gone and I find myself at a disadvantage. I need the control you can give me. I need to be able to…tame my nature, you could say.”_

_I could tell many of the words Jev had spoken were difficult for him. He was proud and admitting he couldn’t protect himself was quite the stab at his ego, but he had a deep fear under his pride, a fear of being hunted by his enemies. His mind felt different to me, like it was ill, like it had a great disconnect in it. Almost like two people in the same space, holding the same thoughts. It made my neck tingle, the hairs standing out as if electrified. He was different, but it wasn’t just his kind, his mix between Darkling and Vampire, it was something else I couldn’t quite grasp._

_A flash of fear, of mistrust ran through his thoughts and that's when I fully realized his disease; obsessed with power, with control, with protecting himself from enemies I didn’t entirely believe he actually had. He was delusional, always thinking he was being watched, followed, persecuted. Thinking he was important to people who didn’t care about him in the least. There was the calm version of him, the controlled one, and then there was another, one whose fear drove its actions, who wanted immortality more than anything else, who couldn’t differentiate friend from foe, so he strove to control them all equally. I had seen it before, how differently he acted sometimes, when he tried to Turn me; calm and controlled one moment and then James came and Jevin’s facade shattered and it was like he wasn’t even him anymore. I hadn’t given it much thought because of the rest of the night’s events, but now I could feel it, see it, sense it. Now I knew just how sick Jevin’s mind was, how delusional, how twisted by his own paranoia. I was about to make a deal with a madman, but I didn’t have a choice._

            _The silver-haired man smiled, long canine teeth gleaming in the dull light of the room._

_“I believe your payment is fair, and I believe we can give you what you seek.”_

_The man’s smile grew into a wicked grin, as he licked his lips hungrily._

_The scene melted and instead Jev sat in a deep crimson plush chair in a large hotel room. By the size and grandeur the room looked to be more of a penthouse than a simple suite, with marble floors and large gilded paintings hanging from the walls. Jev sat in a relaxed pose, but his eyes were angry, a barely concealed sneer on his lips. A man with golden hair curling almost to his shoulders, was standing with his back to Jev, facing a large window looking out at a grey city far below. He had his arms crossed and I knew by his stance, the set of his shoulders, the way he held his head, I knew it was James. A jolt of adrenaline ran through me, but I tried to stay calm. A flash of hate, then disgust, and then sadness swept over me, but the sadness stayed the longest. I bit down on the inside of my cheek, waiting for the emotions to pass so I could breathe again._

_“I’m your brother, Ash. You can’t leave me. I_ made _you.”_

_Jev’s words were cool and calm, almost indifferent, as if he could care less if ‘Ash’ left him. But his eyes betrayed him, he was furious at even the thought and I felt the cracks in his mind, even at his younger age, starting to form._

_“I can do whatever I want, Abas." James said quietly, still staring out the window._

_There was a long pause before Jev spoke again. He glared at James’ back, chewing on his teeth as he lounged back in his chair. James’ stance by the window somehow looked sad, and his face in the reflection hardly even looked like him. I had seen his apathy before, but this was like a mask of the James I knew, an imitation, a husk. His eyes didn’t even capture mine, they just stared out, vacant and lifeless. It was like he didn’t care, about himself, Jevin, anything._

_“You might as well kill me then. You leaving is practically a dinner call to my enemies. I’ll be dead within the week.”_

_Jev sounded petulant now and he shifted in his chair to lean forward, still staring at James' silhouette against the window, paranoia flickering through his mind like a worn out bulb._

_“We had an agreement, I’m the leader and you are the force behind my words. I make the decisions and you make them real. You cannot leave me after all I’ve done for you. I pulled you from your own fucking mind. You were destroying yourself! I taught you control and now you leave? That wasn’t our deal, our deal was I teach you and then you would be mine!”_

_Jevin believed his words, he thought he owned James, that he had somehow created him in their short time together and that gave him the right to place a collar around his neck for the rest of his life. James turned his head at Jev’s last words, his profile in shadow from the glimmering city. His hands flexed into fists at his side for a brief moment before he spoke._

_“I won’t be your fucking pet anymore.”_

_“You think you can save this world? You can’t. Life is cruel and the world is sick!”_

_Jevin’s voice cracked as he yelled, unchecked rage making his face flush in irregular blotches._

_James turned to face his friend and there was anger deep in his dark eyes, their black centers warring with navy blue. When he spoke it was like cold metal sliding against naked skin, each word daring to be challenged. In that moment it was clear Jevin was no longer the leader, clear that the scales were tipping, and whatever shackles James had previously submitted to were slipping off._

_“The world is cruel, but I won’t be your cruelty anymore. Goodbye, brother.”_

_I felt fear flash in Jev’s mind before the scene quickly swam in front of me and I was in a dark small room. Jev was standing before a mirror, looking at himself. He looked different now, and he seemed to be seeing it for the first time. He bared his teeth to his image in the mirror and rubbed his tongue over his new fangs. Then he pinched his nose and closed his mouth, as if waiting to see how long he could hold his breath. He stayed like that for a full minute, just staring at his reflection as it didn’t breathe, didn't move. Finally he let go. He checked his pulse too, but dropped his hand after only a couple seconds. Then he looked at his teeth again._

_The entire time he had a look of placid indifference on his face, like he wasn’t really finding any of the above interesting or worrisome in the least bit. He tilted his head to get a different angle of his face, then turned it the other way, still looking calmly at himself in the small mirror._

_A knock came from the door and he slowly looked. It opened a moment later and the silver-haired man walked in, a small smile on his face._

_“You’re time starts now, and we have so much for you to do.”_

_The room went black a moment later. It didn’t fade out, but instead simply disappeared. I searched a moment more, not wanting to be done and have to return to my own feelings, my own mind. I was sure Jevin hadn’t meant to show me his emotions, his ailing mind, in the way that he had. He probably didn’t know how deep my Gift ran. He probably didn’t know how sick his mind was. Something tugged at me a moment later and I tried not to go, tried not to focus on James, but I couldn’t fight it. It still felt like a pull, like gravity. I saw his eyes flash black and without meaning to my Gift grabbed the memory and dove in._

_I was in the woods, tall trees towered over me. It was night and I was watching as a man stalked back and forth in front of another. As I came closer I saw the second man was tied to a tree, thick rope coiled around his middle, his arms pinned to his sides. The man against the tree had short cropped hair and tanned skin, he looked Hispanic and when he spoke it was with a slight accent._

_“You think you’re so much better than me, but I’ve heard of your kind, I know what you’ve done. You’re just as bad as-“_

_The end of the man’s sentence abruptly changed to a shriek as the first man threw a small knife, just larger than a dart. It stuck in the captive’s right shoulder with a satisfying sound. Upon closer inspection I saw a total of six other knives pin-cushioning the man against the tree. The thrower turned to where I could see his face then. He wore a smirk I would recognize anywhere._

_He looked different, much younger, maybe mid-teens, maybe sixteen. He still looked like an adolescent with a slim build, all arms and legs, his eyes were the same though. He walked a few feet away from the man before turning again, but just before he turned, his eyes darkened and he opened his mouth, showing his now pointed teeth._

_“Yeah, yeah. I’m a monster, how do I sleep at night, blah blah. I deal.”_

_His smirk grew as he practiced his technique a couple times, mimicking the movement of throwing a knife with one eye squinted shut. I knew he was just playing, he had perfect aim, he didn’t even need to try. James let another dart fly and it stuck in the man with another yelp, not as loud this time._

_The man ground his teeth in pain as he stared at the Darkling before him. After a moment he spoke again, though the bite in his voice was almost completely drained._

_“You aren’t even human. You aren’t even supposed to exist; you were damned more than I before you were even born.”_

_The man sucked in a wheezing breath after he finished, clearly beginning to succumb to his slow-leaking wounds. James ignored him. I glanced around then, absently wondered where Jevin was watching from. I had my answer a moment later as he strode out of the trees._

_“Having fun, are we?_

_James looked to Jevin for a half second, completely unrepentant, before moving his eyes to his captive once again._

_“Just a little target practice. Have to stay sharp.”_

_James’ smirk grew at his stupid joke as he made to throw his last knife, this one larger than the others. Jevin stepped in his line of view, preventing the throw and bringing a slight scowl to James’ face._

_“You’re no fun at all. Fine, untie him then. I don’t fucking care.”_

_James said as he picked at the point of his knife, sulking._

_I saw his lip twitch up into a mischievous smile as Jev turned to the man, and I knew he had something planned. His smirk grew into the arrogant look I knew so well, but this one had a mean edge, like his plans wouldn’t be pleasant. Just as Jevin reached the prisoner and started untying the first knot, the man slumped forward. Jevin looked up at the sky in exasperation as if he already knew what had happened, but it took me a full second to realize James had thrown the last knife, barely missing Jev and piercing the man’s heart. He had thrown it so quickly I hadn’t even seen the movement, as he now stood innocently toeing little pinecones around the brush at his feet._

_Jevin slowly turned to face James, his eyes now black as well, mirroring the younger boy’s._

_“You disobeyed me, again.”_

_“Forgive me, father, for I have sinned.”_

_The curve painted on James’ face was more subtle now but still just as cocky, his voice teasing. James’s smile widened when Jev took a step towards him, showing off his pointed teeth again. Seeing his teeth, especially Shifted, seemed strange, he paid such careful attention at hiding them usually. Or at least he did as an adult, but it was clear in his younger years James had been very different._

_“I’m not going to keep you if you don’t obey me. You can go back to the Hell I found you in if you prefer. I can leave you alone to rot in your own mind if that’s what you want. You might be powerful, but you’re mine. I’m your leader. Remember that. If you have a clan one day you can lead them however you like, but there are consequences for disobedience in my family.”_

_James’ smile faded slightly and he looked put out that Jevin was being so serious. The mischievous spark in his eyes left and he stood back on his heels, dropping his arms to his sides._

_“Fine. Sorry. I'm going for a walk, I'll pay my debt later.” He replied insincerely, sounding very child-like._

_James turned and began walking off. Jevin called after him._

_“Bury your Shift at least, the more you learn to conceal it the better your control will get! And Heaven knows you need the damn practice.”_

_Jev muttered the last part, but James just kept walking, each of his long strides taking him further into the shadowed woods._

I forcibly pulled my mind from Jev’s to find him sitting across from me watching with eerie stillness. It annoyed me that my first thought was of James. Then I realized I had never felt so deeply into someone’s mind before, it was like I had left the dim room we were sitting in and instead had truly been in the woods, or the hotel. It made a shiver run up my spine.

“My mind feels different, doesn’t it? You’ll get used to it, I promise.”

Jev’s smile had something devious at its edges, but I didn’t care enough to ponder its meaning.

“What do you want in return? You gave them three years, I don’t have that long. If you won’t give me what I need I’ll find someone else who will.”

I could hear my own voice. I knew it sounded flat, listless. Jev heard it too and his smile dulled. I could tell he was upset I wasn’t playing with him more, but I could barely keep my mind on task. The realization that I was bartering with someone who had lost his mind hardly seemed important now. I had already made me decision. I needed what he had.

“One.”

“I don’t have a year.”

“Do you plan on dying?”

His voice sounded mocking, annoyance etched on his perfectly angled face.

“Something like that.”

I could see the anger beginning to solidify in Jevin’s eyes, but I also knew he wanted me. He had been willing to Turn me earlier without any payment, he just wanted to see what he could get from me now. There was a long pause as Jev watched me, I barely saw him, I was watching the fire instead. It seemed the most alive thing in the room.

“Fine. Three months.”

He finally broke the silence, still watching me, gauging my reaction.

“But I won’t give you what you want until the end. Think of it as you working off your payments until you can afford the luxury you ask for.”

“I need it now!”

My sudden outburst caused Jevin to sit back in his chair, a startled look on his face.

“I can’t feel this for three months, I need it gone now.”

I said the words slowly, forcing each one out. I was desperate for the pain to go away, the emotions, the sorrow. I couldn’t go months with it, I wouldn’t survive.

Jev seemed to be thinking something over, but I kept my Gift in my own mind, afraid of getting sucked into another memory of James. Finally he looked to have come to a conclusion.

“I can make it go away, temporarily, but you’ll need to keep coming back to me. What I can give you isn’t permanent, but it will work for you while you pay off your debt to me. I can make you feel nothing, if that’s what you want.”

His voice sounded smooth again, calm and inviting. All I wanted was to feel nothing, even if he didn’t give me the power immediately at least I’d have pardon from my mind, from the crushing emotions I felt, from the rage boiling in me, the hate mixed with loss, the despair, the betrayal, the disgust I felt for myself and my pair.

Jevin must have seen the desire on my face, because his broke into a smile, his teeth already lengthened. For a moment I thought he was going to do it then, bite me, Turn me but not completely and I felt a flicker of fear sweep through my mind. But a moment later he raised his own wrist to his lips and bit down, his eyes locked on mine. When he pulled his hand away his lips were scarlet and blood ran down his forearm in thin twin trickles.

“Don’t be shy, little Batnae, this is everything you want.”

I sunk from the chair, my knees hitting the ground, the hollow noise echoed in my head. I leaned forward, my mouth an inch from his outstretched wrist. He had a hungry look in his eyes as he stared down at me, a sick glee which almost made me pause, but I needed the numbness, I knew I wouldn’t survive without it.

My lips met his skin and immediately I felt the slickness of blood. I had forgotten how cold he was, even his blood was cold, like licking thick, melting ice from a stone. I felt my heart stutter a second before the world spun, then I felt Jev’s hand grab the back of my head, his fingers knotting in my hair, crushing his wrist into my open lips. My vision blurred a moment later.

Just before the thick blanket of unconsciousness covered me, I felt Jev let go, my head slumping to his lap. He petted my hair, brushing it back from my face, his hands like the early winter wind outside, and then a voice just as cold spoke, quietly, just barely above a whisper.

“You’re mine now.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Cut off my wings and come lock me up.**

**Just pull the plug, I've had enough.**

**Tear me to pieces, sell me for parts.**

**You're all vampires so here, you can have my heart.**

_Bring Me the Horizon - Doomed_  
  


I awoke from a nightmare, my hands shaking, but it hadn’t been a nightmare, it had been real, I could feel it. I saw Jordan, her big grey eyes hollow, her face an empty mask, and then there was Jevin with a sinister smile and gleaming teeth tinged red. I knew what had happened, what she had done. How could I have been so stupid to not see it coming? She was alone, she was vulnerable, she was lost without the clan, without me. For all realistic purposes she still knew next to nothing of this life. I had kept her hidden, protected in the manor, thinking I’d have time to teach her everything, time to show her the world she had been born to but lived outside of for so many years…but now she was alone.

Of course she would make a move for power, for protection, for the anesthetic Jev’s bite could give her. Even I had considered the option, to make the pain go away, the guilt, the despair that my own brother, my own family, had disowned me after everything we had been through together. But I knew they would, I would do the same, at least that’s what I told myself. I had done worse to lesser bloodlines than myself. I just couldn’t believe it was over, all the years of hiding myself, of being the best leader I could be, of fighting my nature with everything I had in me, all my work gone in one night, in one horrifying, wretched night. I had always hated Juda.

I swore at the sky as I stood, gingerly stretching. My wounds from him would take time, especially without anyone to heal me, but I had done my best on my own and it didn’t seem he had used any poisons. I’d barely made it out of the cemetery to the surrounding woods before I collapsed in a dry spot under a large pine. I was unconscious within moments. I had used too much of my energy, too much of my power to even consider travelling any further in my current condition and I had no will to anyways. I just wanted relief, a sanctuary from my own mind, I needed it. But even in sleep I wasn’t safe and now I had forced my Pair to become a monster she didn’t even understand. I doubted Jevin had fully disclosed the pitfalls of his species, but I didn’t let my nightmare haunt me. I had already left my emotions, discarded them like the crippling weights they were.

I buried them so deeply, so completely, until I couldn’t feel them at all, not even the sadness. I let one emotion remain though, one to guide my actions, to be the beacon I’d follow. Rage. The only thing I felt was a white hot anger, a burning inside my gut, a drive to make the one responsible pay, the need to kill the one who had ruined my life, ruined me, over and over again; the Collector, my father.

It would have been frightening, if I had kept the ability to fear, how quickly my emotions fell from me, sinking into the void where my soul should have been. I hadn’t done this, felt this, since I was a child living under my father’s rules. Since I had no need for them, since I had only looked at them as burdens. But that’s what they were, smoke and dust that clouded my judgment, that didn’t allow me to think, to act. I needed to bury them if I was going to get revenge. And now with Jordan throwing away her life because of the tragedy our clan had become, now I just had one more reason to want to see my father dead, to hunt him down just like I had done to so many like him. He was the cause of this, he was the reason my life was no longer worth living, and as soon as I killed him, I would follow him. As soon as I sent him to Hell I would join him, destroying all he had worked for, all he had created. Creatures like me weren’t meant to live.

A cold smile touched my lips and I realized my Shift had covered me. I remembered the feeling of no longer trying to control it, not limiting it. I used to always have my Shift pulled around me. I'd rarely gone without it, even when I didn’t need it. Jevin had taught me to bury it, he had trained me to only use it when I needed to, but I didn’t care anymore if it corrupted me. With my emotions gone, my humanity, it only seemed fitting that my Shift replace them. I walked through the woods with my world a mix of paper and ink, shadows running from my eyes, colors drained until I only saw the objects, the physical marks of the world in stark contrasts. It had been a long time since I couldn’t see the beauty in the black and white of my power, but there was nothing beautiful here, nothing worth admiring in my world anymore.

I remembered the first time I realized my Shift was beautiful, the things I could see that no one else could, the ease with which I could gaze through shadows, the details I would usually miss. My father had sent me to train in the woods one night, it was freezing and I had been in a dark mood because of it. Even as a child I’d hated the change of seasons, perpetual summer and scorching heat always seemed nicer to me. It had begun to snow which only worsened my mood and I hastily pulled my Shift around myself, it was like second nature to me then, something automatic, like blinking or scanning the forest before you for a threat. I don’t know what was different about that time, but as my eyes darkened the world seemed to shine before me. The moon glowed like a pearl in the sky, the snow catching its light looked like sparkles falling over the dark trees, clinging to every branch and glittering like diamonds. The shadows around me lessened and every detail of the ground, the leaves, the sky, was amplified in me until it looked like a dream, a vision, but not like the vile ones I had.

I had been so distracted by it I hadn’t noticed Malachi sneak up on me. He was older, but I still always bested him. I had a cruelty he lacked, a deference for the twisted that he had never been able to compete with. That was the first and last time I ever lost in training to someone and my father hadn’t been pleased. I still had scars on my back from his lesson, and yet I now felt bitter I’d lost the beauty my Shift used to show me. It had been a gift in a way, to see beauty in such an ugly power, but there was nothing beautiful anymore, nothing but hate and anger and darkness.

I walked towards the city, knowing I had to form a plan, knowing that I needed a place to stay. I hated Jev for what he had done, but a part of me wondered if this would be her salvation from me, if she would be able to survive now, survive the loss of her Twin. I hoped she had found a loophole from my curse, from the shadow that always seemed to follow me, destroying the ones I cared most for. Now I just had to protect myself until I had time to find my father, then I wouldn’t care if I died, but I couldn’t lose myself until I had destroyed him. If I didn’t, no one would. No one wanted it as much as I did, no one knew him like I did. If anyone could kill such a demon, it was me. He had practically raised me for such a task, to be able to beat anyone, destroy anything I wanted. That had been what all my training was ultimately for, so I would be the best, the only.

I walked without feeling the ground, my body bringing me to the destination my mind had commanded without a conscious thought. It was amazing, feeling nothing, no pain, no sorrow, no loss, it was like I wasn’t even real. My Shift was the perfect armor in a way. I didn’t even feel the guilt, which would have been the worst of them, knowing that I had spent years tricking Kael and Nevaeh, lying to them when they trusted me more than anyone else in the world, that I hadn’t even been truthful with my Pair, not even once, wondering if things would have gone differently if I had trusted her with my secret, trusted them all. If I would have felt anything, that would have hurt the worst, that would have been what killed me, the guilt, the doubts, wondering if I could have saved them from this, saved us.

I knew I was destroying myself, the part of me I had tried to create, to cultivate all the years with my clan, all the years trying to undo the damage my father had done. Trying to be a man, not a monster. I knew I was burying everything good in me that I had spent so much time making, but I couldn’t bury my emotions without burying my humanity, my heart, as well. I didn’t care though, what choice did I have? It was live as a monster and have the chance to make right as much as I could, or die as a man, buried by my sorrow, my guilt and have my father win. I had no choice, I had to destroy the weak part of me if I wanted to be strong enough to do what I had to. I had to harden myself if I wanted to survive. Emotions were a luxury, a heart a target. I had to become what my father had always wanted if I had a chance of being able to kill him.

The thought left a bitter mark in my mind. My father would finally have the ruthless, heartless son he had so desired, the cruelty he had craved, the rage he had tried to impart in me, just in time for me to turn on him, for the protégé he had pitted on so many to turn and destroy his master. I absently wondered if he’d see the irony. Or maybe this was what he wanted, maybe he wanted me destroyed, maybe his plan all along was to let me build my little castle, make my own life, have my own clan, a family, and then destroy it, destroy me, so I would become the monster I was already working towards.

Well, if he wanted a monster, he was getting it. I didn’t want redemption for what I was, I wanted revenge. A curve pulled at my lips once more and I could feel the cold wind hit my tapered teeth. I would give him what he wanted, but he had no idea how far I’d go to have my revenge. He had stolen my life, my family. He had stolen Jordan from me. It didn’t matter if I lost myself, buried my humanity so deeply it was lost, suffocated by my own damnation, it didn’t matter because I would follow him to Hell too quickly for me to further any plan he vainly hoped I’d achieve. I had only one purpose now, he had taken all the rest away. The sting of that thought alone was enough to catch my breath in my throat, even without my emotions, but it only steeled my resolve. Once my purpose was complete then my life would have no reason to continue and I’d finally give myself the justice all like me deserved; a slow death to remember my sins and an eternity in Hell to atone for them.

I remembered the time I spoke to Malachi about my plan to kill our fathers. I had always been ambitious, and cunning, a deadly combination, but Malachi had told his father of our conversation immediately, one of the many betrayals I learned of young. Though we spent years together, he had never been a friend to me. I considered killing him too, staging it as a training accident, but I enjoyed playing with him in our practices together far too much to be done with him for good. I remembered a plan I had to kill myself too, but it had rarely been serious. My life had always been a mixture of suffering and gratification, pleasure intertwined with pain. I enjoyed my power, my killings, my chores, yet I had often fantasized my own death as a child, but now my plan was closing in, and I felt oddly calm about that fact. I knew I’d die soon, maybe within the year, but the idea of death didn’t bother me, neither did Hell. I smirked as I thought of how fitting it was, since I enjoyed the heat so much.

I pulled the warehouse door back, finally at my destination, and looked in, my Shift showing me what the darkness tried to cover.

“Hello, Chimarah.” I said with a smile.


	4. Chapter 4

**The dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had.**

_Gary Jules - Mad World_

            The drive back to the manor was completely silent. It was hours before Nevaeh even acknowledged me, almost a day before she spoke to me in a full sentence. I knew she wasn’t angry with me, but that didn’t stop her from acting like I was somehow the enemy. She was a bitch like that. We only stayed at our haunted home long enough to grab what we needed and close it up, warding it against trespassers. It was hard to make myself shield the place against James, against Jordan, but they were no longer welcome there, only Nevaeh and I were, only we could call the imposing building ours. That thought alone was daunting. We were alone. We didn’t have anyone to turn to because we had never needed anyone before. The realization that we were no longer powerful, but instead weak and unprotected, vulnerable to all the things I had previously never feared was something I wasn’t prepared for. I packed up my things numbly, wondering what we were supposed to do now, where we would go, how we would survive.

I watched the fog and frost thaw to a sickly green before brightening outside my train window. The colors mixed together as the world hurtled by. Nevaeh was staring out the window stonily across the cabin from me, and if it weren’t for her eyes occasionally following some marker on the countryside, she might have looked dead. I wished she would talk to me, but it was like she had gone mute. And so I stared out my little window too.

The new growth I saw as we traveled south barely lifted my mood, nothing could. The only thing that held me together was necessity. I needed to keep breathing, to keep moving and dragging my thoughts along with my body. If my life had taught me one thing, it was that you always had to persevere, no matter what happened, you could never lie down and take it, never let the world bury you. Only twenty-four hours earlier I had been preparing for our fight with the hunters, and now I was preparing for a new life entirely, wishing I could erase the memories of the last four years, but that wouldn’t defeat me, that wouldn’t break me. I would never give up. At least that’s what I kept telling myself, kept repeating in my mind.

When I pulled my eyes from the bleeding colors outside Nevaeh was watching me with her green eyes narrowed.

“You’re the fucking leader now. I don’t want it.”

Her voice was acid, like poison, like her silence had built up malice on her tongue.

I’d already known I would be the leader. I wouldn’t have let Nevaeh take the position even if she had wanted to, but I was glad I wouldn’t need to fight that battle with her. I merely nodded, staring out the window again at the farms whizzing by.

Too many years with James had made me hate winter like he did, but even seeing the sunshine outside, even knowing the temperatures were steadily climbing as our train continued along to its destination, I still felt cold inside, cold and hollow. We had at least thirteen hours to go, and we had already been on the train for close to nine, but even hundreds of miles, a new postal code, a new climate, didn’t seem far enough away from the city, the manor, the memories. I felt sick still, as if the world was warning me of something to come, though I couldn’t think of anything worse than my current situation. I wanted to smoke, but the signage was clear and I was too tired to try and find a designated area. Despite my exhaustion, I couldn’t seem to sleep, instead I stared out my window and tried to turn off my mind.

 

◆

 

            Life fucking sucked. Everything, everyone, all my plans, all the prestige I had had with James, all the power, pulled out from under me like a fucking trick tablecloth. I couldn’t believe what a despicable, disgusting, disgraceful _thing_ he was.

            He had tricked me worst of all. I had actually _wanted_ him. Wanted a Half, a beast, a demon, wanted the monster responsible for killing my entire family. What a sick, cruel, disgusting joke. I couldn’t believe what he had done to me. He had done it on purpose. Maybe this was the only way he could get some kind of pleasure out of life, he had to build elaborate plans, trick everyone for years, just so he could smash it all out from under them for his own little, twisted amusement. He had made me want him, I was sure of it, made me want him just so I’d feel slimy once I found out what he really was. Like kissing someone with the lights off and then seeing their ugly face and yellow teeth when they flipped the switch. He probably got a kick out of charming people like me, drawing people to him when he knew no one would want him if they knew what he was. What a disgusting trick.

            I hated him so much I wished I could plunge one of his knives into his chest and twist it until I saw the damned light leave his black eyes. I hoped Jordan had killed him, but I knew she wouldn’t, she was too weak, and she was just as disgusting as him anyways. She had probably known all along, he had probably told her in one of their secret little conversations. I was sure of it. How smug she always was, how fake she had always been, pretending to be nice, pretending to hold herself back like some kind of fucking saint, how she had stolen James when all along she was probably in some kind of disgusting deal with him, just to dig at me more. She had known what she was, I’m was sure her little lover had told her and now they were off somewhere making more of their kind, disgusting little Half babies that would grow up to be just as vile as their disgusting parents. I fucking hated them all. They could rot in Hell for all I cared. None of our little family had ever been real and I hated them all the more because of it. I should have killed the bitch during our first training, and I should have killed my dear leader the moment that man had told us what he was.

            I tried to not think about the worst part, that they had done this to Kael too, to the kindest, densest, weakest of all. His heart was too big and his brain too small to take another blow. After losing Ambriel, this was just cruel. I bet James killed her, I bet he did it because he couldn’t stand seeing someone in love, seeing someone happy. I had never questioned his story of their ambush, why would I? But now everything he had ever done, every word he had ever spoken was up for scrutiny. He was a liar and a fake and a demon who deserved the eternity he would have in Hell. I just hoped he’d go there soon. I hoped he was already there. I hoped his father had found him and his little bitch and tortured and killed them both in front of the other slowly so they could all be down in Hell together. I wished I had killed them when I had the chance, but Kael probably wouldn’t let me go back to the city now, and he was the leader, so I did what he said.

 

◆

 

            I was the leader now. Hearing it said out loud was something of a bucket of ice water, a slap to the face. I had to be strong, to be smart. I couldn’t wallow in pity or anger and allow myself to be dulled by the pain of being betrayed by my closest friend, my brother. I had to keep myself together to keep Nev and myself safe. Everything was dangerous now and she had made it painfully apparent that she didn’t plan on acting out any helpful role on her own beyond financial backing. So it would all fall to me.

That was how I would keep myself together. Leading a clan, even one of just two, was easily enough to think about, enough to worry about. It could consume every waking moment if I let it, and I certainly planned on letting it. The more time I spent thinking of plans and protections and our future, the less time I’d have to think about our past and how it was trying to eat me alive. In a way I suppose I was grateful for my responsibility, since even just on the train ride my thoughts always seemed to wander to the same resting place when I let them off their leash. I almost laughed at my choice of words. If Jordan could hear my thoughts she’d make a puppy joke.

            Even if I didn’t take my new responsibility so seriously, even if I simply continued acting as I had before everything went to shit, I assumed Nevaeh would still keep me busy enough. She was a burden on a good day, but in her current state she was a petulant brat, spoiled and sour, prone to tantrums and, apparently, the silent treatment. I tried not to blame her too much, I would have my job, my duties to focus on, to pour myself into, the role of leader to fill. Nevaeh would have nothing, nothing but betrayal and anger and hurt to fall into, to lose herself in. So I tried to be as forgiving as I could, but she was still a brat, a brat who hardly spoke for the rest of the trip.

I didn’t mind her silence, not really, since when she did speak it was never pleasant. I almost  preferred just sitting in silence with her, staring out the window, watching warmth blossom outside. I could almost pretend nothing had changed, that she was just in a bad mood as usual, that James and Jordan were in the restroom, or maybe just walking around the train, checking for exits, stretching their legs. But when Nevaeh opened her mouth, it was impossible to keep that fantasy alive. Every word from her ripped down my daydream and reminded me that we were alone, we were betrayed, and our entire lives together had been built around a lie, a lie who was back in the city we were hurtling away from, probably growing darker and darker with each mile we left behind. I wished she would go back to the muteness of the previous twenty-four hours. I preferred that to her unconstructive words.

I planned on putting whatever leftover energy I had into ignoring my feelings, ignoring the memory of the cemetery and that entire god-awful night. Then maybe I wouldn’t have to work through any feelings, make any decisions about how I should feel. I didn’t want to have to come to terms with the clear contradiction in my mind; knowing that there were no good Halflings, that there never had been and never would be, never _could_ be. That a good Half was a contradiction even just in theory, and yet not being able to think of James and Jordan as the monsters they were. It made my head hurt when I even thought of it briefly, so I didn’t think of it. I didn’t want to. Instead I stared out the window.

We were in a populated area now, and I saw a bar fly by. I wished I was in it, wished I was sitting on a worn wooden bench, my back leaned against a wall with a pitcher in my hand and a massive veggie burger on my plate, or a Portobello cap, I loved mushrooms. There’d probably be others there, it was about that time in the evening, bar time, drinking time. Some tough guy would probably try and start shit with me from a comment on how I dress, or something crude about Nevaeh. I’d stand and he’d have a flash of doubt in his eyes, but he’d know others were watching. He’d try some for-show, lame punch, and I’d break his wrist. Maybe he’d have a gun, or maybe one of his friends would. They’d pull it out and I’d know I could easily stop them, but maybe I wouldn’t, maybe I’d just pretend to try and stop them. Maybe I’d just welcome the sleep...

I shook the thought from my mind, making my hair fly in my face. That kind of daydream wasn’t productive in the least bit. I stared out my window again, trying to not think of anything but a plan for Nev and my future.

Finally the train halted, and finally I could breathe in fresh air, feel the waning sun on my skin, and walk without the ground rushing by beneath me. I still felt sick, but I had known my nausea wasn’t motion-related to begin with, I had just hoped it was. Nevaeh sulked until I said she could pick the hotel our first night in our new city and of course it ended up being one so glitzy I felt like an asshole just standing in its lobby. But it was no use arguing with her on that point; she was the one paying, or at least making the front desk think she'd paid, I didn't know which.

I found myself sitting in the lobby as I waited for her to arrange some kind of long-term stay with the concierge, looking like a trashy homeless bloke in a chair that was clearly not meant for a man of my build. I scowled at every worker who hesitantly came up to me asking if I was lost. Once they saw who I was with they were much nicer, which I found funny. Apparently in the hospitality business you only got treated well if you treated others like shit, and Nevaeh was good at that.

She somehow managed to get us a room that looked like it was made for a rock star, yet still only had one bedroom, one massive bedroom, which was smart, and therefore surprising for her to have chosen. Sleeping in the same room was better for safety, but I had assumed she didn’t care about that. I was glad I was wrong. I didn’t even ask her how much it had cost. It didn’t matter to her and she probably hadn’t even paid. Her Gift was extremely handy at times.

I felt a sinking in my stomach as I sat on one of the beds that looked like it might rotate if the proper buttons on the bedside table were pressed and dropped my bag. This was when the real mental game began, this was when I would have to try and keep my thoughts trained on the future, and ignore the past, ignore the hollow feeling that went from my stomach to my throat, like I had nothing in me, no heart, no lungs, like I was just a carcass. I wondered if it would get worse as the shock wore off, if the numbness would change to something worse, something painful. I wondered if as my mind began to piece together everything, relive everything, if it would weigh me down more, more and more each day until I couldn’t take it, until it crushed me. I wished I could just erase the last four years, it would make things so much easier. I would still be a monster then, if I had never met James, if my time with him really could be erased. I couldn’t decide which alternative seemed worse. I swallowed back my nausea as I began to unpack.


	5. Chapter 5

**I’m your servant, my immortal, pale and perfect, such unholy heaving.**

**The statues close their eyes, the room is changing.**

**Break my skin and drain me.**

_Ludo – The Horror of Our Love_

Jevin was a horrible master, not that I cared, not that it mattered. I couldn’t leave even if I tried. I hated him though, for his tricks, his smooth words, for how he controlled me. He loved it, pulling my strings, making me his pet. I hated being controlled. The clan had never been an ownership, but there was no doubt that this was, he made that explicitly clear. I didn’t care though, I didn’t care about anything, not really. That was the good that came from feeding from Jevin; nothing mattered, nothing hurt, nothing even seemed real. I was in a dream, one that was all grey, empty, free, from my emotions at least. I was his, but that seemed a small price for the void I felt, the numbness. I couldn't call it peace, not really, it was merely nothing. I could think of the clan, my time with them, my training, my old life, all of it and I didn’t feel a thing. I still couldn’t think of _him_ but that wasn’t because it hurt or brought back some kind of feeling, I just didn’t want to. I didn’t want him to exist, and though I had been too weak to stop his existence in the real world, I could at least stop him from existing in my mind. If I ignored him, it was almost like he wasn’t out there somewhere, living on with his lies.

It had been almost a month since I gave myself to Jevin and he had been keeping me busy. His blood gave me refuge from my emotions, but it also gave me a need to serve him, a hunger to do what he asked of me, to please him. It was like I was a puppet and the moment his blood touched my tongue I handed him the threads. The worst of it was that I had come back, every week, sometimes more frequently. I had to come back to him to get more. It was the strongest drug, the worst addiction I could imagine. Even if I hadn’t been hooked I think I would have gone back, I had to, the crushing pain, the anger, the self-loathing and betrayal began to leak back from the corners of my mind if I didn’t. I would feel my emotions marching towards me, filling me, and I would panic and be back at his door the same hour.

If I had to choose between being owned by a creature I hated but feeling numb, feeling nothing, or being free but tormented by my past, my memories and demons, I would choose slavery every time, it was the only way I could survive. Not that I could leave even if I tried, the pull of his blood, my addiction, was too strong. I always came back. It was the perfect trap, Jevin knew I couldn’t, or wouldn’t, leave.

Mostly I was Jevin’s hit man. I suppose I was James’ long-awaited substitute in some capacity because every night or so he would send me to take out an ‘enemy’ or threat as he called them. He knew how his blood bond worked and always made the target sound like an urgent attack on his safety, stoking the fire in me to protect my master at any cost. My errands were my favorite part of my debt to him, since it mirrored my own desires as well. I continued my tally with each target I killed, with each man or Darkling or Vampire. I wished they were all worthy hits, with darkness in their hearts, but I was sure that wasn’t true. Sometimes I could tell, sometimes I just _knew_ they weren’t guilty, that they shouldn’t be killed, sometimes I wasn’t sure, but I didn’t have a choice; I had to do as Jevin told me.

Not all of my tallies were targets from Jev. I often found my own street thugs and muggers, gangsters and murderers. It eased my mind to know that when it counted, when it was my decision, I only killed monsters, people and things that deserved death, just like I had said I would. I could see the guilt in their eyes, in their souls, just by letting wisps of my Gift into their minds, their pasts. It was sickening what my city sheltered.

The city was full of the guilty, full of sin and depravity and filth. I rarely came home empty-handed. It was almost disgusting how easy it was to find the criminals and demons on the streets I had used to find so boring. I often wondered how I hadn't seen them, how I had never noticed the seemingly boundless flow of living trash that welled up in every bar, every dark alley, every corner of the city. Where were the police? Where were the people whose jobs it was to catch these men? It was like the darker places in the city, the lower areas, had been left to their own depravity, left to fester into whatever they may, as long as it didn’t spread into the respectable areas, the rich places where civilization and morality still seemed to hold their ground.

Most kills were easy, the subtly of my nature made Darklings think I was Human, so surprising them was simple. I rarely dawdled with my kills, afraid the enjoyment I got from their pain, their torture, their fear, was just proof I was walking ever closer to losing the last of my humanity. I denied myself the pleasure of a slow kill, even when they deserved so much more than what I did to them. Usually I just dealt a single deadly blow before the target even knew I was more than Human, or less than. I never actually got to fight, to feel the dance, the adrenaline at calculating a worthy foe, at blocking and punching and predicting someone. I missed it, but I still didn’t allow myself the bliss of toying with my targets.

My self-deprivation only made me crave the kill more though, wanting quantity since I wouldn’t allow myself quality. Luckily Jevin had no short supply of marks for me, sometimes cities away, sometimes only miles, but always there was someone. A Vampire, a Darkling, a Shifter, men and women and creatures I didn’t even know existed, whole clans, it didn’t matter. I killed them all.

When I wasn’t on the streets, I was in Jevin’s library, reading anything I could get my hands on, anything that taught me about the world I knew almost nothing about. With the clan I had felt like I was learning so much, but in reality it was foolish of me to think a few months was enough to learn a lifetime of information. Now I devoured any book Jevin owned that could tell me about the world, the real world. I ran over all the creatures that Hell could spew out, all the variations of curses and beasts and things I thought were myths, everything I could that would prepare me for the life I had planned. It was an overwhelming task, but it kept me busy, every waking hour.

Jevin’s blood gave me strength too, and sped up my healing, so now the cuts that climbed halfway to my elbow usually turned to scars within days. I had just shy of twenty; twenty dead in under a month. Just the sight of my tally made me smile, my teeth’s jagged points digging into my lips. The city didn’t even know what it was harboring, what was lurking along its streets at night. It was strange to think the humans lived so blindly, missing so much of the world around them. It seemed impossible that months earlier I had been just as blind.

Jevin said things were changing in the city, that more creatures were appearing, as if gathering for something, drawn by something. He often wore a little smile when he’d speak of such things, as if he knew a great secret. He seemed to know a lot of things, though he still didn’t know my percentage, or what had happened the night I came to him. He had never asked.

The worst of my debt to Jevin was when he’d call on me personally, not for a target. It started when I returned the third time, needing more blood to feed my addiction, to numb my mind. He had stared down at me with that little smile on his face, something scheming in the look he gave me. I saw his teeth lengthen but instead of biting his wrist like the first times, he bit down on his lip, blood blossoming quickly where his fangs sunk in. I didn’t want to kiss him, but it didn’t matter, I needed his blood, my fix, and I didn’t have a choice anyways. That was when I started truly hating him, but that emotion was quickly dulled, just like all the others. I tried to enjoy my nights with him, or at least find them tolerable, but I hated the feeling of his cold skin on mine. He was like sleeping with death, with winter, like a snake who hadn’t found the sun in days. I hated the cold, but still every time he called on me I went, I had to.

I spent close to every night in his room soon, in his bed, unless I was out doing his bidding, or holed up in the library. During these nights I began to practice diving into my own mind, daydreaming, learning how to contain myself there, block out the world. I sharpened the skill over the weeks with him, trying to ignore the world around me, Jevin mainly. I knew my mind felt different, like it wasn’t the old friend I had always had, always known, but that didn’t matter, nothing did, and it was still an escape.

Eventually I hardly even minded the nights I spent with him, I hardly even noticed them. I could close my eyes, or even just stare out, but I wasn’t really there, I was in my woods, or at the manor, or anywhere I wanted to be. In the beginning he could tell when I would do this, when I would retreat into my mind, and it made him angry. He thought of his affections as a privilege, a gift to me, a reward for a good kill, or following some other order satisfactorily. Those were the only times he ever bit me. I remember the first time I thought he was Turning me, but he wasn't, he just bit me for his own sick pleasure, some form of passion I didn’t understand, or punishment. He had a perverse appetite for torture. He did it to pull me from my mind with the pain, to try to draw my focus back to him, and I soon learned to mask my face so I didn’t seem to be as far away as I was, to make noises or move when it was expected of me. Soon it was an easy act, he wasn't difficult to fool. Soon it didn't even take a conscious thought.

He showed me parts of his past sometimes, memories and snapshots, but I learned this was just another way he could torture me; physically, mentally, it didn’t matter to him, he loved it all. He still believed my partner was dead and he thought the pain of that loss was why I had come to him, asked to become like him, because of this he assumed showing me memories of James would hurt me further, though I didn’t think that was possible. Jevin started by showing me memories of James’ kills, how brutal he had been when he was younger, how depraved, hoping to tarnish his memory, but it didn't affect me. I knew James was a monster. I didn’t need any further proof.

Eventually Jev chose his favorite form of torment and showed me James’ punishments most often, when he had been disobedient. James could have refused, could have fought back, but he never did, the threat that Jevin would abandon him always hanging over him, the risk that he would be alone and deteriorate always holding him to do as Jevin commanded. It was nothing compared to his father, even Jevin wasn’t that twisted, and so James allowed the abuse, almost not seeming to mind. Usually James took his punishments with a small smile, a cruel smirk, which only angered Jevin more, as if he couldn’t hurt James in any substantial way, in any way he would fear, as if he enjoyed it, but I figured that was the point.

The only times James didn't smile was when Jevin would use his guns. Then he would stare straight ahead, standing or kneeling like a statue, not a muscle moving, his face hard, his eyes empty, until the trigger was pulled, then he would flinch, almost jump, no matter how he tried to stop it. Something about the visions, the memories, called to me, but my dulled mind didn’t reach for them. It didn’t matter.

I didn’t have dreams anymore either, yet another side effect of Jevin's blood warring with mine. Sleep was just a dark void until morning unless Jev forced his mind inside my own. Soon my thin daydreams were all I had left, all I could use to step away from the life I found myself chained to. I never thought I would miss my dreams, even my nightmares, but I did, and I felt a special loss for my prophecies, a loss for a Gift I had hardly even experienced. If I could have still felt hate, real, true hate, some part of me knew I would have hated my life, myself, what I had allowed myself to become.

The apathy his blood gave me helped my pain, my losses, every emotion was dulled, as if under anesthesia, but I knew the changes in me were more than that. By the end of the first month Jevin had broken me and I didn’t care anymore. Nothing mattered but getting the power I wanted, needed. Just two more months and then I would be out of the trance he had put me in, just two more months and I would be free. Until then I’d make my payments as I should. Just two more months.

One night as I laid in bed next to him he spoke to me, which was rare for us. That was one of the reasons I could slip so easily into my mind when he would call on me for these kinds of visits; there was no speaking, no connection. Instead I could immerse myself in my daydreams, lose myself from the scene unfolding around me. I learned to fear the rare times we spoke, nothing good ever came from our conversations.

 He idly trailed a finger down my side as he spoke, giving me goose bumps from the clammy cold.

“Will you stay with me after I Turn you?”

His words were a purr in my ear, his cold breath rustling my hair like the snowy wind rattling the grand windows on the far wall.

“No.”

I answered flatly, staring up at the ornate ceiling of his master room.

“What if I don’t let you leave?”

He slid one of his icy nails across my stomach, just hard enough to leave a red line of raw skin.

“I’ll kill you."

I replied calmly, silently cursing my mouth for spilling my thoughts. I hated not being able to hide anything, another obligation of my bond to him, another reason I feared each discourse we shared.

“Hm.” Was all he replied before pulling me onto him once again.

The next time I went to him for blood he wouldn’t give it to me. He waited three days, three days of my emotions growing, my pain and the emptiness of where my connection to James should have been. Three days of feeling betrayed, hated, hurt, discarded. Three days of his ultimate torture. Three days of contemplating suicide, just to make it all go away, just to make the pain stop. He waited until I begged, both from the pain, the emotions I desperately needed gone, and from my addiction, the hunger for his blood that made me feel like I was grasping at the edges of a mind long lost. He made me beg half-crazed before he finally laid back on his bed and beckoned me forward. He didn’t bite himself that time, he made me do it, a hungry glint in his eyes. Afterwards, he spoke to me as I reached for his door.

“Remember you need me. Remember I can take away your pain…or I can leave you with it, whenever I want, for as long as I want. Remember who you belong to.”

A part of me wanted to fight, to challenge him and say that no one owned me, but I knew it was useless; he was my master and his cruelty of the last three days proved just how badly I needed what only he could provide. It was then that I realized I wasn’t just his for two more months, I was his forever. He wouldn’t Turn me, he would keep me like this, addicted to him but too indifferent to care, to fight, forever. I had made a deal with the devil and been tricked, and now I had what seemed an eternity to suffer for my foolishness. My only small grace was that his blood dulled my emotions, sunk them so far into some corner of my being that I no longer even felt them. The numbness made my situation not seem so bleak. It didn’t matter anyways, nothing did.

 

◆

 

Six weeks and I was no closer to finding my father as I had been for the previous six years of my life. He wasn’t an easy opponent to track, to predict, to hunt. I had hoped he would be more active since Juda’s appearance and death, but instead he seemed to be waiting, waiting for something I still didn’t know, still couldn’t piece together. I stayed in one of Chimarah’s warehouses most nights, one of the old ones even the homeless stayed away from. The moment she had seen me, standing outside her door, my Shift clear on my face she had gone white or as white as someone of her coloring could. She had thought I was there to kill her. I thought of burying my Shift to ease her mind but her fear would serve me better. She wouldn’t try to get information, to question me if she was terrified of what I was about to do.

I first met her only two years earlier, when she was still deciding what role she would play in the world. She wasn’t an apt fighter, though she had her tricks, but I had a vision of her death. She was so young in my vision, so small and frightened. She didn’t deserve to die. I went and stopped the attack, killing the entire clan that had been about to murder her for sport. She had never seen someone fight like I did, seen someone’s Shift run so deep, consume them so completely. She didn’t keep company with Darklings like me, or I suppose Darkling's like me simply didn't keep company. The horror I saw on her small face when I saved her was still ingrained in my mind, and though I knew she would be a valuable asset to me in the future, always be an ally I could rely on, I also knew she would always fear me. Sometimes I couldn’t tell which emotion her loyalty stemmed from, gratitude for her life or fear for it, but that didn’t matter, not anymore.

I rarely asked favors of her, knowing she was too weak to protect herself against the kind of enemies I had, but when I did go to her, it was always in secret. Even my clan hadn’t known of my connection to this little girl. I had never even told her my name, though I’m sure she had figured it out, that was her specialty, her currency; information. I suspect the entire city was unaware of her or her clan’s presence, of their very existence. They weren’t warriors, they were spies, their purpose wasn’t to fight but instead to blend in, their worth not measured in strength, but secrecy. So who better than them to provide me with a safe house?

Chimarah had many hideouts, abandoned buildings she had claimed and used for various purposes all over the city, but she made sure the one I stayed in would be private, to leave me undisturbed. I had made it explicitly clear that she knew the importance of that fact. In the past six weeks I hadn’t dealt with a single unwelcome guest, and I silently thanked her for that. She had never let me down. She was reliable and I had always known her art of staying in the shadows, skirting any’s radar would turn out to be her best use to me. I didn’t tell her why I needed a secluded place to stay, I hardly spoke to her at all, rarely even saw her, but I knew she wouldn’t turn me away. I knew she wouldn’t spill any information on me. Not even her own clan knew I was staying in one of their leaders’ properties, it was better that way; the fewer who knew of me there, the fewer who would want to ask questions. She knew that as well as I did, and I imagine she wanted her clan as uninvolved with me as possible. Unpleasant things often happened to those associated with me, and with her vast intel of the city, I was sure she knew that fact well.

It was cold in the warehouse, the cement walls did little to keep the winter’s chill out and I hated the cold more than any other sense. I’d rather feel pain than cold, soreness than shivers, but I couldn’t leave the city, no matter how I felt about the bitter wind and snow swirling outside. Some part of me thought I would find my first clue to my father’s whereabouts nearby. It was just a hunch, just a feeling, but it was all I had to go off of. Maybe I didn’t want to leave for other reasons, maybe I couldn't let go of that last bit of my life with the clan, but I ignored the part of me that said that. Regardless of my disagreeable living situation, it was a dry place to sleep, a dark place to hide, and a quiet place to think. My Sign kept me from freezing at least, even as winter raged on outside.

Sometimes I dreamt of my past, of mistakes or difficult decisions I had had to make as the leader of my clan. Those dreams were frequent, and I often couldn’t fall back asleep afterwards. They were like a haunting, a constant reminder of all the pain I had caused others. Sometimes I dreamt of Jordan, but I told myself they were only dreams and usually I knew they were, but one night, as I stared at the grey ceiling above me and watched the shadows of the snow flying outside I felt the familiar sharp pain, the needles in my mind, telling me a vision was coming. I didn’t even try to fight it, though if I had known what I would see, I’d have given anything to be rid of my so called Gift.

_I saw her sitting on the floor of a grand room, her knees tucked under her, her head bowed. A man stood before her, his face hidden from me. She looked up and there were tears brimming her eyes, the desperation cracked her voice when she spoke, making me cringe. She was begging. A felt a flash of anger, brighter than the normal rage that smoldered in my chest, at even the thought of her having to beg, to ask anything of anyone. She wasn’t meant to beg, she wasn’t meant to be reliant upon others. She was an Angel in my mind, a true one, powerful and beautiful and perfect. Her words snapped something deep in me._

_“Please, please I need it. I’ve never disobeyed you. I do everything you ask. Please.”_

_I felt my teeth grind as my vision continued, my hands balled into fists at my sides._

_The man stepped back, sitting on the edge of a clean, white bed behind him and then I could see his face and a stab of crimson rage filled me once more; Jevin. I thought once Jordan Turned she would have left him, left the city, maybe the country. I had heard rumors that there was a Darkling in the city, an assassin with no loyalties, one who killed whoever he pleased, but no one had ever seen him, ever even confirmed his existence since he never left anything breathing behind him. He had been a ghost story and I had ignored the murmurs about him after confirming it wasn't my father. He wasn’t my concern I had thought, I had bigger prey on my mind, but now the pieces clicked and I knew that ‘he’ was actually Jordan. She had been here the entire time._

_I'd told myself that she was long gone, but I couldn’t deny it any longer; Jordan was the new revenge the city had been whispering of for weeks. A wave of nausea hit me as I realized that Jevin hadn’t Turned her, he had bound her. The rage in my chest grew into something more, a hatred of what he had done, of what he had twisted, used, a loathing to my core of the man my old partner had become. How dare he trick her? Dangle all she needed before her face, relief from the agony, and then use her need to force her into servitude. I would kill him. He didn’t deserve the half-life he was living. I should have killed him years ago, put him out of his misery like the disease-riddled dog he was. But I had still thought of him as the man who had helped me, made me see what life could be, but he hadn’t been that man for years, he had fallen so low, destroyed by his own mind, and now he was just a sickly shell of what he used to be. I used to blame myself for his madness, but that didn’t matter anymore, even if I had caused his fall, his mind’s splintering, what he had done was unforgivable. Regardless of his sanity or what had broken it, I wouldn’t show him grace any longer._

_I saw Jordan’s big, storm-grey eyes glistening as they followed Jevin’s movements. He sat on the bed behind him with a look on his face that made a deep dread grow in my stomach, climbing up my throat to my dry mouth. He smiled down at her and patted his lap, inviting her to climb on top of him as he leaned back on his elbows, his eyes hungry, his smirk swollen with pride at knowing what he could make her do. I saw a split second of defiance, of anger cross behind Jordan’s eyes, but then it was swept away by a look of desperation, of defeat. She slowly got off her knees and climbed onto the bed. I tried to stop the vision, not wanting to see what was happening but I couldn’t. It was like a movie in my mind and no matter how I tried I couldn’t stop the reels from turning, the images from coming, one after another, each worse than the one before it._

_She kissed him as if starving, her arms circling his neck, pulling him into her, deepening the kiss. She dragged her teeth along his bottom lip until ruby glistened. He drew away then, raising his chin to look down at her once more, a little nod, a silent command, and she peeled her shirt off obediently, making one edge of his mouth tip up in arrogance. The blood from his lip began to run down his chin, and I could see Jordan's eyes trained on it, she swallowed hard, her chest heaving as she waited for her master's permission. Like a dog watching a bone._

_The desperation in every movement of her body made me wonder how long he had made her wait. How long had she suffered her withdrawals? Then a cold thought settled in my mind, like a pin prick of ice that quickly spread. I had left her with him all this time; six weeks of him using her, controlling her, binding her to him. I had done this to her, I had forced her into it. And then I had ignored the signs, ignored the rumors. I should have known such a skilled killer, such a lethal judgment must have been her, but I hadn’t wanted to believe it. I wanted her out of the city, I hadn’t wanted it to be her so I had convinced myself it wasn’t, all the while allowing her to be Jev’s pet, his toy._

_He slowly leaned back, keeping his eyes on hers until he hit the pillows, stretching his arms behind his head in a relaxed position. He licked the blood away, seeing the pain on Jordan's face as it vanished, her lips parted as she panted in need. I felt bile rising in my throat again, tasted the acid at the back of my tongue as my old leader spoke for the first time._

_"Me first, my little Batnae. I want you to feel it this time."_

_This time._ This _time._

_I was responsible for all the torment she had suffered, and I could imagine what that had been, what Jevin had done to her. I hated him more than anyone in that moment, more than my father. I felt like I would burst with the rage filling me, the disgust, the revulsion pumping through my veins, boiling inside me. I would kill him, he didn’t deserve life, he didn’t even deserve death, he deserved something far worse for what he had done to my Pair, my Twin, my Angel._

The vision ended as I saw Jordan crawl forward, straddling Jevin as she began carefully unbuttoning his white shirt. He stayed unmoving beneath her in his casual pose, a little sneer on his face as he watched her follow his orders. And then the vision went dark and I was back in my cot, glaring at the ceiling, my eyes wet and my mind aching from the travesty it had witnessed. The next thing I remember was yelling, a roar of anger and hate and horror rebounding off the concrete and metal walls of the warehouse.


	6. Chapter 6

**And I hold your beating chambers until they beat no more.**

**You die like angels sing.**

**The horror of our love, never so much blood pulled through my veins.**

**The horror of our love, never so much blood.**

_Ludo – The Horror of Our Love_

I could still taste Jevin, the cold death his presence always left on me, when he called me back to his room, luckily it was just for a target, not something more intimate. I left immediately, wanting nothing more than to get out of the house and into the bitter winter air, hoping it would numb the feeling of him from my skin, hoping the cold could blend into the memory of his skin against mine until it just seemed like winter, not something worse. I packed a quick bag of weapons, throwing knives as well as some larger daggers and a lightweight crossbow in, and finally clothes, silently hoping my target would take more than one night, and was gone within minutes.

I pulled my coat up against the cold, nestling my head back into its hood. I was maybe eight blocks away from the house when I felt their presence. My Shift arched in my mind, stretching, preparing for a fight, giving me a warning. A moment later I felt a disturbance in the air. I dropped to the ground as a dart flew over my head and stuck into a garbage can just a few feet from me. One look told me it wouldn’t have been deadly, no poison and not large enough to cause any mortal wounds; so this was a capture, not a kill. Their mistake. I rolled to the side, spinning back towards my attacker as I stood. It was a woman in a dark ensemble, clearly my kind, I could tell from her presence though she wasn’t Shifted. I also knew she was weak, a diluted bloodline that was no match for mine. My Shift ripped from me as I sensed two more Darklings, then three, then four. This wasn’t just an attack, this was an ambush. I sent out my Gift to their thoughts, something I hadn’t done in weeks. Feeling others’ minds just reminded me that my own was broken, numbed to the point of no longer even being a mind, not with my own thoughts at least. Feeling others just reminded me of the emotions I had given up so much to forget.

In the past weeks I usually only looked into people’s pasts, their memories, to determine their guilt and ease my conscious about my orders to kill them. In this rare case though, I needed my Gift in the present tense. I needed it to give me the upper hand, an advantage to the five Darklings, the clan, that was quickly converging on me. I hadn’t needed my Gift like this on any of my kills before. They had never been that challenging. Murdering someone unsuspecting was almost so easy it wasn’t even fun, which had been my entire plan. I didn’t want to enjoy it. But now the tables were turned and I was the one caught off guard. I felt a small burst of defiance, of pride, something usually so dulled I couldn’t even remember what it felt like. I refused to die like so many of my targets had, taken by surprise, beaten because they let their guard down, a fatal mistake.

My mind reeled as I tried to figure out how they had found me, how they even knew of me. I hadn’t gone after this clan, I hadn’t done anything to gain their attention. This clan wasn’t my target, they were my hunters. So someone had sent them. Someone had targeted me. I wouldn’t lose like this, like an animal, cornered and collared to yet another master. I knew what I would do even before a single second had passed - one dagger to the throat of the man behind me, trying to get a clear shot at my back, a quick turn and then my second knife to the chest of the woman before me, my Sign could suffocate the next to try and come for me, giving me time to grab the sword from my back and spin once more. A strong swing at the second Darkling behind me would leave him decapitated and then it would be one-on-one, an easy task and all under four seconds. I would be adding more tallies than expected to my arm after this errand. I felt my sharpened teeth show as I smiled at the thought.

The woman’s mind told me all I needed to know as I pulled up a shield of hard-packed air around me, waiting for their attempt at a capture before I pounced in the lull of shock its failure would inevitably bring. They wouldn’t even see it coming. They wouldn’t even feel their own deaths. Quick and painless and no fun at all, just as it should be. Humane. I could feel in the woman’s mind that she had orders to capture me, though I didn’t have the time to fight through her memories to see who the order came from, it was blurred out like when something is erased but still leaves grey smudges behind, but she feared him, I knew that much. Part of me wondered if killing a clan who didn’t wish the same on me was wrong, but I wouldn’t let myself be controlled by another, one master was all I could tolerate. As their traq darts came I hardened my shield and watched as they fell to the dirty snow around me, useless, a smile forming on my lips once more.

I raised my black eyes, preparing for the carnage that was on its way and was met by a midnight blue I thought I would never see again. For a moment I froze, my leaden emotions trying to break from the prison they had been trapped in for the past six weeks. Those eyes, _his_ eyes. Then I felt a sting at the back of my neck. I turned and saw a tall, dark skinned man, his arm still raised, holding the tranquilizer gun, his eyes with obvious fear in their depths. I raised my knife as two more sharp needles stabbed into my side, my Shift screamed at me to let it fly, but my body wouldn’t do as it was told. A moment later I slumped to the slush, feeling the cold wetness soak into my hair. The last thing I saw were white flecks swirling down from a dark sky.

 

◆

 

I waited for the call from Chi, to hear she had Jordan, hoping my pair hadn't killed any of her clan in the process. If they followed my advice, I hoped it would be a bloodless capture. I had my Shift pulled around me, I almost always did lately, standing back in the shadows across from Jevin’s home, just waiting for the call, to know I wouldn’t run into her when I went in. The call came and I could barely contain myself during the brief conversation, all I wanted was to rip Jevin apart. I may have been denied revenge on my father in my vain attempts to find him, but at least I could take revenge for what my old friend had done, the pain he had caused Jordan, the torture he had put her through for the past months. He would die tonight and I couldn’t wait to feel his icy blood run between my fingers. He would get what he had deserved for so long. I was finally coming back to him.

I hadn’t even stepped into the street when I felt eyes on me. I changed my path to lead me to the alley that ran alongside Jevin’s home, feeling the presence follow me. I turned the corner quickly and ducked into a small alcove, waiting until I saw my follower silently glide around the bricks, a moment of confusion on his face at my seeming disappearance before I pounced, grabbing him and slamming his back against the bricks.

            “Who are you and why are you following me!”

            My Shift made the words come out as a snarl, barely containing my need to kill the spy. The man struggled in my grasp for only a moment before recognition came to his face.

            “You’re here for Jordan. You’re here to save her!”

A look of awe was on his face, and it took me a moment to place where I knew him from. He looked different now that he was Turned. It was the man from the club, the one who had danced with Jordan, the bartender and one of Jevin’s pets, who had apparently gained his reward in the past months and now had cold skin and empty veins just like his master. I wanted to kill him.

            “I’m not here for _her_.”

I tried to place as much disdain in my voice as I could, the last thing I wanted was some new Vampire running about the city blabbing that the Darke clan was still in town. From the rumors I had heard, most of the city’s Overworld thought my whole clan had simply left, together, no one knew we had disbanded, and I preferred it that way.

            The thought crossed my mind that I could easily kill this bastard, tie up a loose end. That way he’d never be able to let it slip that Jordan was in town, or that she was the assassin the entire city had spent the last month and a half petrified of, but I assumed Jevin had already forced his sired to swear secrecy on the subject. I could still kill him though, just for fun, just because I could still picture him in the club with Jordan, holding her and dancing in a way that made my arms tense at my sides and my jaw ache, even now. I pushed him away from me instead, trying to stuff down the anger I felt, just for a moment, until it could be given to the one who deserved it.

            “I’m here for your master, not any of his _pets_. Though I suggest you make yourself scarce for the next few hours unless you want to witness him begging for his life as I skin him alive.”

The words hissed through my teeth, just the thought of what I would do to Jevin made my Shift send a shudder up my spine. I saw the bartender swallow hard, a spark of something in his eyes, loyalty? But then he turned and ran down the alley without so much as a glance back at me, his large frame moving with a swiftness that proved he had lost his humanity, traded it for something colder. I grinned despite myself at his apparent decision that self-preservation was worth more than a futile attempt to warn his master. He was a smart little leach.

            After watching him disappear around the corner I stretched my Sight, trying to find what room Jevin was in. His bedroom, of course. He was lying in bed in tight, silky boxers, a self-satisfied smirk on his face that made it easy to guess at what his evening had consisted of. Apparently my vision hadn’t been of the distant future as I’d hoped, though I knew it was a vain wish to begin with. I knew it was happening as I saw it. I looked through the rest of the house then, searching the layout, looking for the best way in, the fastest route to him. There were a number of others in his house, guards, servants, various pets, both human and Vampire alike. After less than a minute of searching I decided it would be useless to try and spare his household. The most direct route to him would be over piles of his servants’ corpses. I smiled at the thought, my Shift stretching under my skin almost painfully, my eyes still dark.

            Now that I had made my plan I decided I might as well enjoy myself, relish each kill as if it were him, until the grand finale of my visit when I would have him begging in front of me just like he had made Jordan do. I went to the front door, unable to hide the smile on my face at the thought of ringing the doorbell of the one I was about to destroy. I rang it twice, my entire body tingling with anticipation.

            A man opened the grand door, spilling light onto the pavement around me. His gaunt cheeks and grey skin made it obvious that he must have been one of the human menu items Jevin especially liked the taste of to keep around for so long. I smiled once, flashing my teeth at him, letting them catch the light before I dug the blade on my right wrist into his abdomen, pulling it out at an angle so his guts covered the floor. His eyes never even had time to reflect his shock before the light left them. I kicked his corpse out onto the front steps before closing the door behind me, my shoes leaving gory, red prints as I walked across the pristine, white stone of the entryway’s floor.

            I was almost to the stairs when I heard the sharp intake of breath that’s the prerequisite to a scream. My dagger stuck in the woman’s heart before she could make her warning noise, her body slumping to the floor as her fangs shrank back up into her gums in death. I walked over and yanked the blade from her, wiping its length on my pants to clean it before putting it back in its holder at my hip.

            By now the decadent entry smelled of sweet blood mixed with the unpleasant stench of guts, but I doubted even Jevin’s heightened senses would catch it, he was still far away in the large house, behind closed doors. He most likely had a fire burning on such a cold night too, especially without a warm body in his bed. My jaw tensed at the mere thought of his dead, icy skin touching Jordan’s, an almost painful ripple running through my mind from my Shift.

I was up the stairs moments later, stalking down the white hall, my steps just barely leaving dirty smudges now. I knew which room was his, end of the hall, quick right to the high double doors meant to be a layer of defense, but they wouldn’t stand up against me, not now, not with how I was. Even the two guards he had posted outside them wouldn’t slow me. Nothing would. I broke into a run as soon as I heard a scream come from downstairs, apparently someone stumbling upon the Vampire woman by the landing. Before the scream ended I rounded the corner and saw his doors, a large man standing on either side. My fire covered them both before they even recognized me as a threat. By the time I got to the doors they were little more than charred flesh and stinking smoke. One kick brought the doors down, the left one hanging by its hinges, little bits of wood scattering the floor. I stepped in to see Jev, still in bed, clutching at something under the covers, his face a mixture of terror and disbelief.

“I do hope that’s a gun, dear brother.”

I let the words slip through my Shift, sounding calm, teasing even.

            “Sh-she’s not here, and if she was you can't have her back. She’s mine now!”

            He said the words as if he truly believed them, like he could own someone like her, as if he had stolen her away from me in some way.

            “I’m not here for her. I’m here for you.”

            Jev’s eyes dropped to my hands as a slight hiss filled the quiet between us. I released the trigger on my knives, letting them show from beneath my sleeves, twin blades coming from the tops of my hands. I rolled my shoulders once, loosening my tensed muscles, getting ready for the inevitable fight to come. I knew the outcome though, I could already feel Jev’s blood on me, see it pooling on the floor, soaking into the white rug beneath his bed. I smiled at him, letting my teeth show in a way I knew would remind him of our past, back when I took pride in my Shift, in my bloodlust.

            “ _She_ came to _me_! I didn’t do anything wrong. She wanted what I did to her! She needed my blood! Because of _you_! You can’t fault me for that, you can’t be angry with _me_ for giving her what she begged for, what _you_ made her need.”

Jev was pushed up against the white headboard now, pulling at the covers around him like some kind of shield. Apparently he knew his fate too, apparently he knew I wouldn’t leave without his head. I took a step forward and he cried out like a child.

            “She said you were _dead_! You can’t be here _now_! You’re dead! You’re _dead_! You’re gone! Even _you_ can’t come back from Hell! _You are dead_!”

He screamed each word at me, almost sobbing by the end, a pathetic show of what he had become. I felt a ripple of disgust move through my mind, disgust at the cowardly excuse for a Darkling before me, one who could only gain power over others by deceit. He had lost all of his mind, it was obvious now, and I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed it before, seen the cracks in the thin mask of sanity he wore. It was almost a kindness to kill him.

I took another step toward him and he pulled the gun from under the covers, aiming it at me poorly as it shook in his hands. My smile widened as I took another step.

            “Go ahead, shoot me, see if you can squeeze that trigger enough times before I cut your heart out. See if you can kill what’s already dead. I came from Hell for you, brother, come home with me.”

I said the words softly, my voice persuasive, convincing. Jev looked like he might die of his own fear before I even got the chance. What a shame that would be. His eyes were wide, mouth opened slightly, lips quivering even more than his hands. I could tell he believed me, he really thought I was a demon sent from Hell for him, a ghost. He always had been the spiritual type. I smiled again as I took the final strides to the foot of his bed.

He stared at my teeth as I approached, like he thought I would bite him.  The thought had crossed my mind, but I’d rather my knives taste his blood. I knocked the gun from his hand easily. He recoiled from my touch like a beaten dog, whimpering as he stared up at me with eyes full of awe and fear. I raised my blade to his throat, watching as his eyes left my smile to instead follow its tip.

            “Y-you c-can’t kill me. She n-needs me, my blood. She’ll go insane without m-me. She c-came to me for a re-re-reason, she needs it because of y-you.”

His eyes were squeezed shut now as he spoke, his voice coming in bursts as he choked back his own fear and snot, sniveling like the gutless coward he was. How far he had fallen from when we first met, from when he had taught me, culled me, since he had been something of a mentor to me. How destructive his search for power had been. How destructive I could be to others if they didn’t guard themselves against it.

Despite his state of mind, his words gave me pause. What if he was right, what if she needed him to survive, what if killing him would kill her? What if her addiction was too strong? But then my vision came to mind, of her begging, crying at his feet, the hungry look in his eyes as he watched her climb on top of him, the countless other torments he had no doubt put her through in the weeks he had enslaved her, I could picture them all. I knew the sick pleasure he got from women, I remembered many times from our past. I had disapproved back then, but I would end it now. He should have known to not touch Jordan, to not try and control her, to not hurt her. Even if he had thought I was dead he should have known better than to use my Pair. Even if I _had_ been dead I would have found a way to kill him, to make him pay.

“How pitiful that you have fallen so far.”

The words barely escaped my mouth before my mind shut down and I no longer had control. The world around me flooded with reds, calling for the blood that was about to be freed from his guilty body. I heard Jevin scream as the blade cut into him, he tried to fight me off but his terror only fed my need for revenge, for his death, his payment. I saw the red begin to run down his chest in great streams, drenching the bed’s white sheets in mere moments, dripping to the floor. I could smell the staleness of it, stolen from others, and then I felt the cold, the freezing touch of his blood as it left its dormant home. I cut into his neck first, wanting him to feel the blood he so desperately craved leave him, but I knew that wouldn’t kill him.

I watched him for a  moment, sputtering, grasping wildly with slick hands, trying to keep the precious liquid he needed so badly from leaving his corpse, but then I saw the fresh mark on his lip, where Jordan had bit him, and I couldn’t stand it anymore. I couldn’t let him live another second.

I cut his heart out, shortening the blade at my wrist before pushing it into his chest, slowly turning it, sawing, chiseling his heart out from behind his ribcage, crushing them in before prying them back, snapping them. Each movement slow and deliberate, letting him feel as much as possible until his hand gave a final twitch before he lay still and I held the slippery mass of muscle in my hand, the one that hadn’t beat of its own strength for years. I threw it in the fire, watching it burn as I added to the flames with my Sign, added to the heat until the remains were blackened and charred, crumbling like the ash of the logs.

I turned back to Jev’s body once the fire no longer interested me, his cold blood still dripping from my hand. Even with him dead my rage burned on. Even with him dead it didn’t undo what had been done to my Pair, my Twin. It didn’t give her those six weeks back. It didn’t save her from the torture her body and mind would go through as it rid Jev’s blood from her own. It didn’t erase the memories she would have to live with of being owned by someone, of being a pet, a slave. I knew those feelings, and I knew they would change her, haunt her for the rest of her life, change her. I knew what it was like to have your life owned by another, to have to submit to someone stronger than you, to know your existence, your life, wasn’t actually your own. I knew the torture that was, the hopelessness of someone stripping away your pride, your choice, your very being.

I went to the body then, leaning over it as I pulled his head back and cut through the rest of his neck, my boots squishing in the blood that had pooled on the floor. My vision was still red, my second Shift not yet receding into the first, not yet ready to give me back my mind. Instead of trying for some means of control I reached out to the wall, Jev’s blood on my fingers, and wrote a message to the rest of the city. To anyone who would dare try to hurt someone undeserving. To anyone who would take advantage of someone in need, of someone weak. To anyone who would try to trick and manipulate, like Jev had done to Jordan.

I left a message I should have left years earlier, but I had convinced myself I didn’t have the right to be the world’s punishment, that I wasn’t deserving of the title of executioner, but I knew differently now. I knew that evil would run wild if I didn’t stop it, the guilty would go unpunished, the innocent un-avenged. I wouldn’t let that happen, criminals and monsters alike would fall asleep each night dreading the day I came for then. There would be no trial, no levels of severity. I would either judge them blameless, or guilty, and I would destroy all the guilt I found, burn it away from my city. I was on no one’s side, I wasn’t bound by any’s rules. Mine would be a coming like no one had ever seen.

_The King Has Returned._


	7. Chapter 7

**I can't get away with murder.**  
I am bound to take it further.  
_Pop Evil - Deal with the Devil_

 

Nevaeh’s attitude got steadily worse over the weeks, as if she honestly believed the entire world was against her. I suppose I could understand why someone like her would see it that way; her parents were lost, her sister, and now her clan. She had gone through the ultimate threesome of shit in her life. I tried to be kind to her, to be sympathetic, something she hadn’t seemed to think of in regards to me yet, but it was difficult when she would get in my face, screaming like we were on a reality TV show. I hated people getting close to my face, it had always made me want to bite them, which I full know is a strange reaction, especially for my kind, but it was still always my most readily available reflex when someone got their face too close to mine.

Usually I just let it slide with her, let her vent at me, even when it was about stupid shit, but lately it had gotten worse, and she had started drinking, or rather, her drinking had gotten worse. She had gone from three or four drinks a day to thirteen or fourteen, and even for a Darkling, that was a little much, especially when the drinks were the size and strength she made them to be. I tried to be kind, understanding, but she was angry and hurt, yet too proud to admit her injuries, so that just left the anger, and mixing that with her binge drinking and an already less-than-sugary personality, sometimes it was all I could manage not to squeeze the life from her in her sleep.

I sat across our messy but fine room on my bed, watching her shoulders rise and fall as she faintly snored, a trash can next to her half full of vodka-smelling vomit. For a Darkling she had never been able to hold down her liquor well. I almost let my mind wander to how the hell I had come to be where I was, how my life had fallen apart so quickly. A month and a half earlier I had had everything, almost everything, but I pushed Ambriel from my mind as well. None of that mattered anymore. I laid back on my bed as I tried to think of productive things, tried to reign in my mind, but it was no use. I knew I wouldn’t be able to sleep, not with Nevaeh sure to wake up every hour or two for more booze, or to puke again.

My support of sharing a room had quickly faded within the first week. I liked my privacy and my sister didn’t have a thread of modesty in her. I sighed as I stared at the ceiling, trying to remind myself that I should go easy on her, that even my life looked easy in comparison to the one she had suffered. I knew I was just in a bad mood because I was restless, because I hadn’t _done_ anything in weeks, hadn’t practiced, sparred, hadn’t even Shifted in over seven days, hadn’t left the penthouse in six. Nevaeh didn’t seem to mind doing nothing, but it was draining me, boring me to death, but I couldn’t seem to find any decent reason to drag her from our hotel either. It was as if she had chosen the quietest city in the region to relocate us to, or maybe I just didn’t know where to look, who to ask. I pulled a pillow over my head so I wouldn’t wake inebriated-beauty as I let out a groan.

I left soon after, just needing the streets, their freshly polluted air, the possibility of violence, anything but the monotony that my life had become, the mind-numbingly boring nothingness that my life had become. Nevvie was almost out of booze anyway, so I told myself it was a liquor run, but it wasn’t, it was a search, a hunt, though I didn’t have any particular prey in mind.

I took a short cut through an alley, since there was no reason for me not to. I didn’t have to fear some little hoodlum, and we hadn’t seen sign of a single supernatural event since our arrival. I had decided weeks ago that we were the only even remotely dangerous beings living in the grey city. But then I felt it, just a little tingle from my Shift, from the Shift that had been dormant for far too long. I froze, wondering if I should switch my vision, or if I was just being paranoid. I kept walking.

Not even fifteen seconds later a man appeared in front of me, appeared, out of nowhere, out of the plain air. I stopped, sensing that something was off about him, obviously, but kept the surprise and curiosity from my face. My initial reaction was to bash his head against the brick wall on our right, but even with his grand entrance, he seemed so human, so weak and pathetic and easy to kill, and young. So instead I just stood in front of him, waiting for the point of his little manifestation.

The man initially appeared before me in an aggressive stance, self-assured and more for show than anything else. When I merely stood before him however, looking unimpressed, unafraid, he paused, even glanced around as if he wasn’t sure he had poofed himself to the correct location.

“Yes?” I said dryly, sounding more like James than I could ever remember.

“I, uh.”

Then he disappeared, but I felt him poof behind me, heard his breathing, the scuffle of his shoes on the gravel underfoot. He clearly wasn’t a warrior, just a punk with a weird skill. I ducked when I sensed the blow coming, simultaneously turning to face him. I let my eyes darken, feeling like a double hit of the newest club drug. Along with my Shift came my decision. I would kill the dick and find out what he was later, or if one hit didn’t knock his head off, maybe I’d be able to get some answers from him before I snuffed out his life. I almost felt a second of hesitation, I wasn’t in the habit of killing humans unless James directed it…but I was the leader now.

One punch and the man lay twitching on the ground, his body giving little jumps like he was still alive, but by the way the side of his skull had caved in I knew he wasn’t. I turned after watching him for a moment, still wondering what he was, or had been. I kept my Shift, just for kicks, as I continued down the dark street, enjoying the feel of it. I began to wonder if I shouldn’t have killed him, if it had been wrong, but the sight of his blood, the impact of my blow, I had missed it all so much it seemed silly to think of it as anything but a treat, a gift. I smirked up at the sky, but as soon as I leveled my eyes in front of me again I saw the next one, another young human man, this one maybe just seventeen. His eyes were wide where he stood.

“Y-You killed Cal?”

His stutter and the way his eyes were bugging out of his head as he looked past me made it clear the kid had never seen a dead body before, at least not one so fresh.

“Yes, are you next, little human?”

Again my voice sounded like James’, in fact I was almost sure I had heard him say similar words before but I ignored the thought. I had based my entire act as leader on him, since he was the only point of reference I had.

“Whoa there, I’m pretty sure we’re on the same team here, man. You’re just, you know, not as new to the club as we-uh, well, as I am.”

The boy stepped back, his hands up in a show of retreat.

“He was supposed to kill you, you know, initiation, but uh, I guess he picked a shitty target. I went for a pretty young thing, she was noisy as hell till I shut her up, but at least it was easy. Cal had to go for the big, crazy lookin’ dude though. Serves him right, right?”

The kid let out a nervous chuckle.

I was not impressed, or even curious, strangely enough I was just angry and it came through clearly in my voice as I replied.

“I hardly think we’re the same. I would be able to tell if you were.”

“Well then, uh, what are you, man?”

It was then that the drifting smell of alcohol met my nostrils. Was no one in this god damn city sober?

“Me? I’m a killer. You? You are not. Go home, kid.”

He seemed to only then notice my black eyes, or the irregular shape of my teeth, but he didn’t back away.

“No, no man, I am too. You’re like me, totally, you know just like, a veteran or whatever.”

The kid sounded eager now, like being a dark-freak-murderer was desirable. This generation. I rolled my eyes.

“What...are you?”

I had to pause to control the volume of my voice, as my first word came out in a boom that bounced off the damp alley walls. The kid was grating my last nerve.

“Well, you know, I’m like a human, sorta, but like, plus.”

He smiled at me cheesily and I was almost too stunned by the strange little being in front of me to even know what to do. The kid continued when I didn’t react as he had expected.

“I’m like an X-man.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

In the breadth of a blink I had him slammed against the wall, his feet dangling beneath him, my hand closed around his throat where I held him suspended.

“What are you!”

I roared in his face and I almost thought he’d wet himself, instead he answered, his words falling into each other, quaking like he couldn’t quite catch his breath, which by the way I was holding him, seemed likely.

“I’m human, with powers and the price, you know like you have, but I just got 'em last week. I dreamt and they asked if I wanted it and I said hell yeah and then they found me and when I woke up I was there and like this and they said I’d kill someone with my ability and then boom, powers cemented in and I’d be like a Shazam, Superman, X-man thing, you know, like you, man. I told you, I’m just newer to the club, that’s all, I swear. We’re on the sa-”

I snapped his neck by accident, cursing under my breath as I dropped his dead weight.

“No, I’m pretty sure you’re on someone else’s side.”

I got back to the room to an awake but whiny Nevaeh. I explained what had happened but she hardly reacted. It had been hard to put my Shift away once I left the alley, and Nev’ nonchalant act was making it stir in me again.

“Jesus, Nev, don’t you get what this means?”

I finally stopped pacing to glare at her, fighting the darkness from my eyes. She rolled her head in my direction as she laid sideways on her bed in uncomfortably skimpy lingerie, her head off the edge.

“Yes, there are two dead X-men in an alley. Neat.”

I threw a pillow at her, which made her scowl and turn herself on the bed until she was almost upright.

“Alright fine, you want to hunt down those little smudges on the Earth cause it’ll make you feel worth something? I’ll tag along, whatever. You’ll probably need the backup, but I’m bringing my friends.”

She grabbed two of her flasks defensively as she spoke.

“Fine, get some clothes on. I want to be gone in ten."


	8. Chapter 8

**Just know that when you see me cringe sometimes,**

**I’m trying to rid the poison from my mind.**

**I will suck the elixir from your fingertips until I feel my head start caving in.**

**My mouth will overflow with your evil soul,**

**and I’ll be convulsing for days in this hole.**

_The Spill Canvas – Your Evil Soul_

 

I awoke in a cold, cavernous room, my mouth felt dry and my head swam slightly as I tried to make out my surroundings. A man stood with his back to me and I thought it was James for a moment, but then my vision cleared and I noticed his stance, his shoulders, the way he held his head. He was built closer to Kael than James. I tried to move, but wasn't the least bit surprised when I found that I couldn't. I was tied to the chair I sat in, rather thoroughly, which was bolted to the floor, also maddeningly thoroughly. A dull metal gleamed from my wrists and ankles; electrum. I swore in my head. Kael had taught me about it, strong enough to bind even a Half, able to be cursed, blessed, enchanted. It could render a Darkling’s Sign or Gifts useless in some cases, if the enchantment was perfect, if the warlock was strong enough, well-read enough. Kael had said he was good enough, and I knew Nevaeh's whip was proof of his aptitude, unfortunately a member of this clan seemed to be just as good.

I glanced around, but there was nothing near me, no way to free myself from the damned chair I was stuck in. Instead I glared at the man in front of me, fuming. I was furious that all my work, all my perfectionism in killing my targets, honing my skills had so easily been thwarted by some stupid vision of James’ eyes. I was sure he hadn’t really been there. I hadn’t felt him. I should have felt him if it was really him. I sat silently, glaring at the man who seemed oblivious to my new-found consciousness.

I cleared my throat after a minute or two, bored with the waiting game. The man half-turned then, but said nothing, he merely looked at me with light brown eyes, little flecks of gold in them, before turning to the door he was facing, his back to me once more. He was tall and tan, with light brown hair that matched his eyes, but he wasn’t anything special, just large like an animal, like a grizzly.

“Strong, silent type. I like that."

I spoke after the silence of the room began to drive me mad. He ignored this as well, continuing to stare at the door. I tried to open my Gift, to dive into his mind, but it was like it was missing. I silently cursed the electrum before closing my eyes again.

I don’t know how long I waited, how long I sat there silently, eyes closed, trying to think of an escape plan, but eventually I heard a quiet tap and then a loud grating noise. I peeked out from one eye to see the door the man faced slowly open, scraping along the ground heavily as it did. The slight woman from the alley walked in, she looked even tinier compared to the big room, the big man. She pulled back her hood, shaking the snow from it and I saw she was even smaller than I had thought, she looked young too, maybe seventeen. I swore in my head again. I had been captured by a child.

She had dark skin that made me think of how well she must hide in shadows, even in the dim room her expression was almost difficult to make out, and I had never had an issue seeing in low light. I scowled as I realized the electrum made me useless, basically human. She had her hair cut short and wild, with pretty roasted-coffee brown eyes peering out from a round face. Young wasn’t even a good enough word to describe her, she looked infantile, infantile and dark.  Everything, even her jacket and jeans, were hues of brown or black. She reminded me of a sparrow, or maybe a bat, or some other small, flying creature. Or a baby deer, something about her seemed like a fawn. My scowl deepened as I felt another wave of shame for being so easily captured by a kid and the men she played house with.

“Hello, I’m Chimarah, but you can call me Chi. I’m the leader of this clan, five of us. This is Syn, he doesn’t speak, but don’t take that personal like. Spade, Horn n’ Halo are the others, but they’re slightly tied up at the....”

She glanced to the cords holding me to my chair and seemed to regret her choice of words, squeezing her eyes shut for a brief moment.

“We didn’t want ta have ta result ta trickin’ you into…visiting with us, but we didn’t have much of a choice.”

“But J-Gabriel…”

I couldn’t call him James anymore, that wasn’t who he was anymore, at least not to me. As far as I was concerned that man died the moment I learned who he really was; Gabriel, a monster, a demon, and the worst betrayal I would ever know. He hadn’t been there anyways, I knew that. I just wanted confirmation.

“I don’t know who you mean, but that was Syn. He can make anyone see the thing they desire or despise or fear the most…for you it’s apparently a three-way split. He’s got lots of talents like that. Nasty trick, I know, but I didn’t want you ta hurt my brothers. I didn’t want there ta be any violence in your rescue and you looked like you weren’t planning ta go down without a fight.”

            “Rescue! This isn’t a rescue, this is a capture! I don’t need to be saved! I’m doing exactly what I want!”

I struggled against my restraints, suddenly wanting to smash the petite woman’s head in and see her dark blood run from her dark skin but she merely looked back at me, sadness in her eyes as she turned to leave. I yelled after her, telling her to not dare turn her back on me, to leave me, that I would kill her, but the door clicked behind her regardless of my threats. Syn continued to stand at his post, his back to me.

            The next evening Chi came back, this time with a tall, slender man with even, beautiful skin that matched her own. He was pretty in a regal way, like the pictures of African princes in magazines. My mind drifted to the gene-lottery a child of his and Nevaeh’s would have before forcing the thought of her from me.

            “This is Spade, he’s the healer of our group. Don’t try ta hurt him now, he just wants ta see what he can do ta help your…your um, bind ta…your…well your blood addiction."

            She said the last part quickly, as if embarrassed for me. I felt the fear that had been growing since my arrival surge. I didn’t want to go through what I had those three days Jevin had denied me my drug. I didn’t want to go through the withdrawals, the pain, feeling my mind pull apart.

            “He’ll try ta make this as easy as he can…what Jevin did ta you was wrong, he tricked you. We’ll let you…we’ll help you clear his blood from your system. Then we’ll let you leave. We aren’t your captors, that was him.”

            She spoke calmly, slowly, like a nurse might talk to a mental patient, to someone unpredictable that frightened them. Her accent almost sounded Irish, something I hadn’t noticed in my rage the previous night. Regardless of her kind words I smiled pointed teeth at her as she approached with Spade, allowing my Shift to flicker across my face, even if it was powerless.

            Spade paused, looking more nervous the closer he got to me, but Chi continued her pace until she stood directly before me.

            “She won’t hurt you, Spade. She’s just afraid.”

            “I’m not afraid of you. You should be the ones afraid.”

            I spat the words, though I knew they were only partially true. The clan didn’t scare me, the thought of loosing Jevin’s blood did, and in my current state I was about as frightening as an anesthesia-riddled lion wearing a shock collar.

For the first time Spade spoke, and his voice was much lower than I had expected, rumbling through the room like thunder. Again I involuntarily thought of how he would complement Nevaeh's high, melodic voice.

“She’s a Halfling, they don’t even know what fear is, Chimarah. She can get the blood out herself if she wanted to.”

Chi gave him a look that told him the subject was over, a look that showed she was the leader. She glared up at him, her small features looking even smaller as she craned her neck to be able to meet the eyes of the man twice as tall as her, daring him to challenge her. He dipped his head in response.

            “Who told you about Jevin? Who sent you for me?”

At my questions Chi’s face snapped back towards me, a look of fear was deep in her brown-black eyes. I wished I could call on my Gift, but there was just a void where it should have been, a dark space in the back of my mind, emptiness.

            “We have ears and eyes. I heard whispers from them that Jevin had bound an Angel and that it was causing havoc in the city. We knew it couldn’t be true, but a Half is almost just as unheard of. We, we won’t tell though, we haven’t told anyone, ‘bout you, ‘bout any of it.”

            “How do you know I’m a Half? I didn’t even know until…until right before Jevin.”

            My voice almost broke as I spoke, and I cursed myself silently for it. I hadn’t talked about that night with anyone, and I was hoping I'd never have to, like if I ignored it long enough, it would fade away, maybe even disappear completely.

Spade’s eyes widened a fraction when he heard me speak, either from disbelief that I had lived so long without knowing what I was, or from the crack in my voice, I didn’t know.

            “You, well, you talk in your sleep, dearie. And we gave you enough tranquilizers ta basically sedate an entire farm, you were out for a few hours.”

I felt a flash of embarrassment, wondering what else I had said, what else they knew. I thought I hadn’t dreamed for weeks, but maybe I just didn’t remember them. I felt a sting of loss for that as well, for all the dreams or prophecies I might have had over the past six weeks, but would never know, never remember. I looked down at the floor then, not wanting to see the look of pity Chi was giving me. I didn’t want pity, or deserve it.

“I can already tell you’re…well, you’re doin’ better. You don’t look as…you don’t look like him anymore. I mean you don’t look like a Vamp anymore. I know it’s just a day, but it’s a day away from his scent, poison, erm…God, I’m so bad at this. I just mean you don’t look dead anymore. Point is we’re going ta get you clean, so ta speak, and then you can do what you want, you can leave and keep with your…city clean-up, or whatever. You just need…we didn’t want ta see a traitor ta our kind like Jevin controlling someone so…unique. We usually stay out of this kind of thing, we aren’t hands-on, but…”

She sounded like she wanted to say so much more, but I couldn’t read her. Without my Gift I felt like a sociopath, unable to recognize even the simplest of emotions.

            I did realize she was right, even just one day away from Jev’s toxic presence, around my own kind made my mind feel slightly clearer. It was like I had been living in a haze for so long I hadn’t even realized it. I remembered the feeling of being alone with him, even just the first time I went to his house, the night my life fell apart, how being around him made my mind feel thick. I couldn’t believe I had been so blind to it for all these weeks. My emotions were still numb from my last dose, but some part of me seemed to be trying to break through, trying to speak to me, pounding on the glass. I pulled away from it as if by reflex, not wanting to feel whatever was fighting to be heard.

            “We’re going ta cut you now, Spade is going ta share his blood, it will lessen the withdrawals. It will make them come faster though. I’m not going ta give you a choice, you aren’t thinkin’ straight right now. I just wanted ta let you know.”

            Again she spoke in a calm voice, describing what she would do before she did it to lessen any aggressive actions I may try. A part of me felt insulted that she thought I would act irrationally, but then something rose from deep within me, my bond to Jev, like his blood sensed the threat to its hold on me, sensed it and fought back, fought with fury. It took over, or some part of me took over. The blood from Jev, the blood that made me loyal even though I despised him more than ever ripped my Shift from me and I snarled at Spade with darkened eyes as he slowly approached, a small, razor-thin knife in his hand.

            He gave Chi an apprehensive look, but she nodded him forward. The small knife sunk deep into my wrist and my blood started dripping to the cement floor, audible in the silence. The bite of the blade seemed less than it should have been, like the pain was far away. Then Spade drew the scalpel across his palm and pressed it over my wrist, squeezing as he spoke words I had never heard before. I had a flash of a memory, of James sharing his blood with me, pouring it over my open throat as I lay on the forest floor, thinking of how beautiful he was. But I had never heard the words he said, I had hardly been aware of anything. I had thought I was dead. I should have been dead.

Just the thought of James made my Shift jump a notch higher, my world was suddenly dipped in crimson and ruby. I pulled against my binds and heard a creek and then a snap. My non-injured arm flew from the chair it had been bound to and closed around Chi’s neck before I even realized I had broken the cords holding me. A moment later Syn appeared before me, I saw his arm swing and then stars and bursts of light filled my vision, then everything went black and was still. When I woke up there was light outside the small window my room housed and I was alone, save for the hulking figure standing guard, watching the door with his back to me.

 

◆

 

I didn’t feel my Shift settle back into me for hours. It wouldn’t let its claws recede completely, but I didn’t mind the company, the clarity it brought, the violence, the rage, all the things I loved. I knew my purpose now, and it wasn’t just my father, it was everyone like him, regardless of their kind, regardless of their bloodline. I should have killed Jevin years ago, but my gratitude let him live, my sympathy for him, my past and what he had done for me. He had been my first friend, though his friendship had always been more of an ownership. My weakness allowed him to live on and do terrible things, things that were now on my shoulders because I had given him the power to do them. I’d handed my Pair to him, I had caused all the death he had ordered. I had allowed him to touch her. I slammed my fist into the wall of the alley I stood in, hearing bricks crack along with bone.

How had I been so stupid, so naive to think she was gone? I couldn’t leave her alone again, not like I had. I had to protect her. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if she died because of my deception. There were so many I hadn’t been able to save, but she was different, she was the only one. She had to live.

She was with Chi now, with people who wouldn’t defy me, who wouldn’t dare hurt her, even if they could. But I knew she would leave them eventually, they weren’t like our clan had been, she would go back to the city, go back to where monsters I didn’t even understand were lurking. Our world was changing, I could sense it. Just like the demon that had found a way past Kael’s wards in our woods, just like how it had been able to disappear without a trace. Things were happening, things were changing. It was all coming to a head, all steadily moving towards some end I hadn’t yet figured out, but I knew my father was at the center of it. The frustration was enough to drive me insane.

On top of that, my father didn’t just want me, he wanted Jordan too, and I knew the lengths he would be willing to go to for what he desired. I needed to find him first. I needed to end what I had left unfinished so many years ago. I couldn’t protect my clan anymore, they weren’t even mine, but I could at least protect my Pair, even if she hated me, I had to protect her. I had never felt anything as deeply as I felt that. She _had to_ survive. She deserved to live. Just as surely as I knew I didn’t, she did.

A flash of silver caught my eye, even as I rested my head against the cold bricks, almost like a glow. I turned my head and saw the swirl of someone’s coat as they turned the corner, a wisp of light hair trailing in the wind before it disappeared. I made it to the corner within the breadth of a second, my eyes searching down the adjoining alley but nothing was there but dirty slush and soaked cardboard, the remnants of some vagrant’s summer home long abandoned. My eyes searched the alley for movement, the rooftops, the doorways, but there was no one, nothing but a trick of my imagination, of a tired mind with deep set mistrust for the world. I closed my eyes and took slow breaths, trying to calm the eerie feeling I was left with. It was nothing. No one was there.

I wished that was the first time I had seen something, or thought I had seen something, only to investigate and find nothing. I wished it was just a strange happening, a one-time unexplainable event, but it wasn’t. I had seen it before, many times over the past weeks, sometimes a wisp of her hair, sometimes just the feeling that she was there, sometimes I almost thought I saw her face in a crowd, if only for a fraction of a second. But the dreams were the worst, seeing her face, her eyes black in a sea of white. I woke up in a cold sweat each time, my arms outstretched before me, grasping for her neck, trying to wring the life from her, to end the haunting and send her where she belonged, once and for all.

Regardless of the nightmares, of my glimpses of her even when I was awake, I ignored them, disregarded them, hoped they were hallucinations brought on by stress, but they weren’t. At best I was being haunted, at worst I was losing my mind. All the answers in-between were unsatisfactory, but the answer didn’t matter, I didn’t have time to dig up old graves, to look at the choices of my past and dissect my reasoning or the results. I had to continue on, I couldn’t waste whatever time I had worrying about my mental health. But even so, it was a ticking clock at the back of my thoughts. How long would I have until I made even Jevin look sane? How long until my nature’s greatest threat made good its ever-present promise? The fear that loomed in all Darklings’ minds?

I had pictured my own death hundreds of times, usually by my own hand, sometimes by an unknown enemy, sometimes even my father, but never had I thought insanity would take me. Never had I expected my final battle to be with a faceless disease I couldn’t even fight, something that wasn’t even real, wasn’t real anywhere but in my mind. It was the most cowardly way to die, weak and pathetic, defeated by my own demons. No, I wouldn’t die that way. I would die by my father’s hands before I allowed that to happen. I would die by my own hands before my mind’s.

Like so many times before, I pushed the thought of her from me, ignoring the realization that I had just seen someone I had killed, someone I had buried, years earlier. It didn’t matter, all that mattered was finding my father, killing as many guilty along the way, and protecting my Pair until the first two were finished. I just had to beat the time bomb that was myself now, but I had known that all along. Whether it was my nature or my mind, I was on a tight deadline to finish my work while I still could.


	9. Chapter 9

**How do you drown out the voices when you're all alone?**

**They pry at the walls you built inside your mind so long ago.**

_Like Moths to Flames - My Own Personal Hell_

By the third time Chi and her brothers shared blood with me I no longer fought it. They had doubled the wires tying me and I hated the feeling of them biting into my skin when I would struggle. The fog in my mind continued to dissipate, becoming less dense with each passing day. Soon it was hardly there at all. I still felt my loyalty to Jev, I still felt the need to escape and return to him, but I also could feel my hate for him growing, burning deep in my stomach and running through my veins. The rest of my emotions were slower to come, but when they did they tore at me just as I’d known they would, just like they had the night I had been deserted, or the days Jev had refused me his blood.

The clan thought my withdrawals were the sole cause of my pain, that I was somehow still feeling their full force despite the bloodletting and sharing. I didn’t tell them otherwise. I was too ashamed of my weakness to tell them the real reason. That it was me, my own mind, my own past, not just my addiction that was making me wake up with gasps of pain, cringe each time an unwanted memory slunk through my mind, dig my nails into my palms until they bled, just to try and control what I felt.

The suffering of my emotions aside, my actual withdrawals didn’t seem as bad as the first time, probably from all Chi’s clan had done, but I could sense something coming, a final attack of Jev’s blood on my mind. After the ninth day they thought the worst was over and untied me from the chair, letting me stand, walk around, lie down. They kept my hands tied though, just to be safe, just to keep my powers dormant. After the eleventh day I thought I was just paranoid, I thought Jev’s poison was out of my system completely, but then the madness came. I hoped it would be lessened because of their blood sharing, but it was as if Jev’s knew what I was doing, knew I was straining his poison from myself for the last time.

The attack on my mind wasn’t just from Jev’s blood, I knew that much. My mind was already vulnerable because I was alone, because I was broken and bitter and betrayed. It was a terrible mixture of my already damaged mind, the emotions I couldn’t handle, plus the added injury of the addiction. I felt more hopeless some nights than I had in the cemetery when I first learned what I was, what _he_ was. I was pathetic and that only added to my hatred of my past, my so called ‘family’ and my twisted, lying, heartless excuse for a partner. I hoped the anger would help, but it didn’t, nothing did. And the realization that it would always be like this, that it would never get better, that I would always be what I was, that he would always be gone, that my family would always be gone, was enough to make me wish for death.

I cried out some nights, feeling a cold, hollowness inside me, convinced it was going to swallow me up and I wouldn’t exist anymore. I felt a fiery self-loathing other times, either from my own emotions or the madness, I couldn’t tell. Sometimes I screamed at the pain in my mind, begging it to leave me. Sometimes I couldn’t even remember what had happened the night before, or the entire day before. That was when I was at my worst, my fear of going insane only fueled my need for Jev, my drug. I would have given anything to taste my cold, sick medicine again.

Syn rarely left my prison, but sometimes he would, when I would get bad enough, when I would beg him to kill me or at least untie my hands and let me do it myself. He never said anything but I saw a softness in his eyes when he would look at me, a deep sadness that made me wish he wouldn’t ever have to see me again. I wished none of them saw me like that, screaming at people that weren’t really there, memories from my past, swearing at Heaven, Hell, anything and anyone to kill me, to take me out of my misery. I hated them for making me live.

After six days the insanity slowly left my mind, leaving a dull pain in its wake, but my relief at having my mind back was short lived. The withdrawal was over, but that meant my emotions were back in their entirety, no more of Jev’s blood in my veins, dulling me. I didn’t curse at the walls around me, I didn’t cry or scream at Syn. I didn’t beg death from Chimarah when she would come see me, but the memory of my betrayal hurt more than anything I had ever experienced, maybe with exception of the Serpentine’s poison. The ache of knowing what I was and finally caring, caring that I was the vilest creature the Earth could house. The hate and rage, the loneliness, the disgust at my own depravity. Then there was the emptiness of no longer having my Pair, my Twin, the man I needed yet hated more than I ever thought I would fully understand.

Sometimes I winced, like a reflex, like my mind would never forget the things it had been through, like it would never fully recover. I was changed, different on an unseen level, damaged in some fundamental, unalterable, irreconcilable way.

I didn’t understand how emptiness could hurt so badly, but it did. It was cold too, like the electricity I had felt so often, the burn of my connection to my partner, his Gift against mine, was now frozen, leaving frostbitten edges where our connection, our shared link, had previously been. I no longer cried out in my sleep, but I hardly spoke when I was awake. Everything hurt too much. I didn’t beg for death anymore, but I silently pleaded with the world to find a way to kill me, a way I wouldn’t be able to stop. I didn’t want to live, but I was too proud to die without a fight.

One day Chimarah came in with the rest of her clan in toe, even Syn left his guard post by the door and stood before me. Chi had been in to see me often, especially when I had been going through the worst of the withdrawals. Part of me still hated the clan for making me feel again, for inadvertently causing me more pain than they would ever know, but how could they know? They had simply thought they were saving me from the monster that had been my master, they hadn’t known I was the one who sought him out. Another part of me was grateful to them for forcing me to be myself again, for making the haze leave my mind, the apathy that made me not question the life I had lived, that had robbed my true self from me, robbed my mind from me.

My fire was back now, my defiance, my pride. I would never be owned by another, used by another, part of me couldn’t even believe I had been to begin with. It was like a terrible dream. Even the memories of my six weeks with Jev faded, as if they were disappearing along with the fog, being pulled away along with his blood. The only proof my nightmare had been real were the marks, the deep scars his teeth had left when he would bite me for his sadistic amusement or passions. They were permanent stains, always showing on my skin; my shoulder, my hip, my ribs, a constant physical reminder of my hatred for him. It had been a trance in the deepest form, but now I was free and I was never going back.

Chimarah spoke first, as I had come to expect when she was accompanied by any of her clan. Despite her size, she had a presence that demanded attention and obedience, though I doubted I would obey her, or anyone, after my previous tastes of authority. Her young age sometimes showed through and I could often tell she was nervous, but I assumed that wasn’t her usual nature and more related to the fact that she had held a Halfling hostage for the better part of a month.

“You seem…recovered.”

She spoke slowly, watching me for some reaction I wasn’t yet sure of.

“I hope you know that we did this out of…respect for you. You-we’ve heard that you are different than others of your…lineage, and I for one believe the rumors ta be true. I’ve never seen a…I’ve never met a Half like you. I’m sorry for what you went through and I’m sorry we had ta be a part of your pain, but what Jev did was unforgivable and…”

She seemed to think for a moment before continuing, changing her mind about what she had been about to say.

“I first stole you from him because I couldn’t believe what he was doin’ ta one of his own kind and because I was afraid of what someone as ruthless as he would do with the kind of power you could provide him. I’ve heard stories of him, rumors that he’s been…deteriorating. I would have done this for anyone, but…but at this point I’m glad I did it for you because you are more than what he would have used you for. Some are content under others, some are better there, you aren’t. I-I do not trust your…I’ll never trust a Half, I would be a fool ta, but I hope you will see the last few weeks through our intentions and not hold it against us now. I hope-“

“You don’t want me to kill you when you let me go. Like releasing an animal back into the wild and hoping it will run into the jungle instead of attacking the ones who opened the cage.”

I smirked up at her, though I had no intention of killing them.

“I can promise you if I kill tonight it won’t be your family. I will only kill those that deserve it, and from what I’ve seen, none of you deserve death.”

A thought came to me then, one I had thought of many times, but never wanted to speak out loud, but now seemed my last chance and I couldn’t lose it.

Chimarah was already leaning forward, a jagged knife in her hand, one that could snap the wires that tied my hands. I couldn’t wait to be free, to breath fresh air, to see the sky again, the snow I was sure was covering the city. I needed to see anything but the dull grey of the cement walls of my prison, but I needed to see something else first.

“Wait. Before you…let me go, can I speak with Syn for a moment in private?”

Chi gave me a look like maybe my mind wasn’t completely back yet, but Syn put his large hand on her small shoulder, completely covering a good portion of her back as well, and nodded down at her. She and the others left quickly with only a couple furtive glances over their shoulders before the heavy door clicked closed.

“I need to see him one more time, please. I need you to show me the man you were in the ally, when you tricked me. I don’t know how I’ll react, so I’d like you to step back, but I want to see his eyes just once more.”

I meant to ease into the subject, to not come right out and ask to see him again, but the words tumbled from my mouth. Syn had a sad look in his eyes again, but he crouched down before me, his face level with mine where I sat on my cot, and then it changed. First slowly, just his light brown eyes darkening, almost like the beginning of a Shift, but then they turned a deep, dark navy, like the night sky or the middle of the ocean, so blue it was unnatural. I couldn’t look away from his eyes, from James’ eyes, Gabriel’s. I had missed them so much, their knowing look, their beauty, the memories they brought, but at the same time I hated them, their deceit, their lies, the pain. I dropped my gaze as I felt wetness on my cheeks. I shook my hair from my face so it wouldn’t stick to my tears as I wiped them away hastily.

“Thank you.”

My words were barely above a whisper, but he was already making his way to the door, and then ushering the others in.

Chimarah had a strange look on her face when she came back in, but I knew she couldn’t have heard us, not through the thick door, not when I had spoken so quietly. She walked across the room swiftly and cut the thick wires without any pretense. I knew she had brought the whole clan with her, even Horn and Halo who I had rarely seen more than glimpses of during my time, to try and discourage me from attacking them, hoping that a five-on-one scenario after I had been in captivity for weeks would be enough to make me think twice before trying to kill them.

 

◆

 

            _It feels like the good old days, though I never thought I’d be calling them that willingly. But I have to admit there is a certain freedom to violence, a certain draw to choosing your own rules, your own morals, and it’s even better because I can defend them. Killing’s wrong, you say? Only armies and juries can take a precious life? I politely disagree. Death isn’t a cruel and unusual punishment, its fair payment. Torture isn’t a war crime, its atonement. Sometimes a swift death isn’t deserved, sometimes it takes more to satisfy the appetite of justice. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you? No, thank you. Do unto others as they would do unto you, as they would do unto others, as they_ have _done unto others? My pleasure._

_All I’m doing is what the world should have done generations ago, but everyone only talks, everyone is too scared to get their hands dirty, to do the work themselves. Humans think sending a soldier into a third world so he can put rounds into a gorilla fighter’s home and children is decent, a necessary evil, but killing a killer without a trial isn’t? I politely disagree. Even my own kind have failed on this point. They’ve gotten so caught up in sides, with labels and their own quarrels, they lost sight of what they began the war for; wiping out those that don’t deserve to be in this world, killing those who are better suited to burn than breathe._

_What I have planned is something quite different from the squabbles of my ancestors; obliteration. Not of a certain kind, not of a certain side or percentage or rank, but of the evil, the vile, the guilty. The disease this city is full of but no one, Darkling or human alike, seems to be willing to amputate. Call it a swifter version of justice, call it an inevitable subculture in today’s times, all I know is I restrained myself for too long, only saving those I saw in a dream, or when I would happen to stumble upon someone in the act. Only going after my own kind once their death toll reached far more than it ever should have, but not anymore. I‘m proactive now, hacking away at the evil souls I cross even before they grow into action. I can’t heal humanity, but I can do my best to burn away the disease, the cancer that bureaucracy has allowed to thrive. It’s beautiful to me, a release of everything I’ve held in for years. This was what I was made for._

_It almost makes me sad to think of the time I wasted playing house, pretending to be something I could never be. Better to bury my emotions and use my raw nature than to cripple myself with morality, with mercy. Those I kill didn’t show mercy to the people they hurt, so why should I? Burying my emotions, though necessary at the time for different reasons, has proven to be the greatest of tools for me, it has given me a new perspective, a new purpose. I have no one, nothing, no reason to control myself beyond leaving the innocent to live out their lives unscathed. Could it even be considered wrong what I’m doing? Maybe my practices could be looked at as a bit indulgent, but my end result brings the city ever closer to being free of those whose version of a normal evening is a mutilated body left in a gutter_

_There are so many who treat the lives of others like trash; Vampires, Shifters, Darklings, the demons they command and all the variations in between. It seems due time that someone would give their life, all that they are, to destroying creatures like that, to treating them how they treat others._

_My kind isn’t supposed to exist, so the loss of its dark and dirtiest shouldn’t be mourned. I’m not killing father figures and volunteer workers, I’m killing the creatures the rest of the world doesn’t even know exists, in parts of the city its better-off inhabitants have turned their backs on. Should I feel guilty? Should I feel guilty for these sins? Should I feel anything for the demons I’ve sent back to their home? Maybe, but it’s hard to feel without a heart. Without a heart there is only nature, instincts, and mine are telling me that I can do more good as I am now, a monster hunting monsters, than I could ever have done if I'd kept my humanity close, protecting it like the crutch it is._

_When only nature remains, you begin to see that there are many rights, but most are so afraid of making a mistake, of going to whatever afterlife they believe the guilty end up in, that they decline to attempt a balance of the scales. I,  on the other hand, already know exactly where I’ll be spending my eternity, so I might as well bring in as many others like me as I can. I expect a welcome party when I arrive, not necessarily of friends, but at least I’ll be known, at least I can die with a smile on my face as I remember all the filth I cleaned from my city, from every city, any city. I’ll be able to look back on my life and know I tried to do right in my book, which is the only one that matters to me in the end. And if there ends up being a god and he judges me harshly for those I’ve killed, then I will gladly accept his punishment. I will deserve it, but never regret it._

_It was beautiful in a way, the freedom of truly doing what you want, what you believe you should, because you know it won't change where you end up. No matter what there is after death, I know it won’t be pleasant for things like me, so why contain myself? Why hold back? Why vainly try to please the Heaven which judged me before I was even created? I’m doing what I believe I should, killing those that deserve it, and if I take pleasure in my work, all for the better._

_If the city called Jordan Mors, I wonder what my name will be? I'm partial to King, of course, it already has an advantageous record, already gives the guilty an innate dread that will be difficult to recreate, but I know that people are already calling my little show at Jevin’s a copy-cat. Maybe the city’s Under and Overworlds truly believe that King isn't back, or maybe they’re just refusing to admit the possibility, regardless, it feels good to let my nature drive me again. It has been so long since I truly enjoyed my work. I always took pleasure in the little things, of course, but now I can finally let my needs out completely, no fear of opinion, no fear of moral backlash, no one to be an example for. All there is is myself and my victims, and their sins and screams and the sweetness of their deaths. Justice._

_Justice is finally back. And though I am far from blameless, at least I’m willing to see my soul burn if it means I'll have company. At least I know I’m damned. What is more noble than that?_

I crumpled the page in my hand, staring at the fire before tossing the paper in, watching it ignite and then fall into itself until I couldn’t discern its ashes from the rest. I had written it the night before, after another killing, after I had taken out a Darkling I should have years earlier. Though my words were true, at least many of them, it still felt wrong to write them, to add the page permanently into one of my journals. I enjoyed hunting down the creatures that didn’t deserve breath, but I didn’t actually think my means were justifiable. I just couldn’t fight it anymore. And why should I? I had no one, nothing. That part was true. All I had was a goal, and until I found him, I didn’t see any reason I should let evil run rampant in the city. They were my practice, the stone I would sharpen myself on, hardest myself against. And if I killed them in ways that made others cringe, turned the stomachs of better-bred men, so be it. I wasn’t fighting myself anymore. I only had one enemy.

Maybe it wasn’t just hesitation for my present actions that made me burn the page, maybe it was for my past too. I saw her again, on a side street as I passed. I almost wouldn’t have noticed her if it hadn’t been for the red standing out against her pale skin, the flecks of it that contrasted so sharply against her translucent flesh. It was only a flash, a glimpse from the corner of my eye before she disappeared, but it was the fullest picture of her I had seen yet, staring at me with shock on her face, the ink in her eyes melting away to their diamond, ice blue. A color I had been used to seeing daily, but now dreaded.

I could still picture it, still picture her perfectly. I hadn’t thought of her for months, at least until she started appearing, haunting me. I had to do what I had though, I knew I had to, but then why was she always there when I closed my eyes? Nothing for months, nothing more than an absent thought passing through my mind, and yet now she was everywhere, reminding me that I had killed her, that I had tricked her. I didn’t feel guilty, I never would, I hated her, but then why was my mind conjuring her? Why would hallucinations come in her form? I had to do what I did. She had no right to blame me.

 


	10. Chapter 10

**Yes, I know I'm a wolf and I've been known to bite**

**but the rest of my pack I have left them behind.**

**And my teeth may be sharp and I've been raised to kill,**

**but the thought of fresh meat, it is making me ill.**

**So I'm telling you that you'll be safe with me.**

_Young Heretics - I Know I'm a Wolf_

 

I stood and all but Syn took a step back, even Chi, though hers was small, just a minute roll back onto her heels. I walked over to the wall before leaning on it and closing my eyes, rubbing my wrists where they had been bound. I had newly healing scars encircling each wrist from when I had pulled against my binds, from when my insanity, my withdrawals, had controlled my actions. I breathed out a strength name immediately, glad to be able to pull from Heaven once again, now that the electrum’s curse was no longer holding me. It had felt terrible and strange to not have my powers, to feel human and weak, to feel like I had before I met my clan, my old clan. I felt Chi and her brothers’ eyes on me, so I squinted one open, just barely, before I spoke.

“Don’t worry, I’m won't eat you. I'm going soon. I just need a moment. I _was_ tied up for weeks.”

I attempted a smile, but even I could sense it didn’t look real. I barely even remembered how to fake it. I had been working at surviving my emotions, my sadness, containing them somewhere separate from myself, as often as I could in the last few days, almost constantly working through them, learning how to cope. I hoped that if I continued, if I kept up the effort, kept my head above their waters for long enough, then maybe I could handle them one day, but smiling was still much too far a stretch for me.

Spade looked down at Chi and I saw him raise his eyebrows. Horn and Halo, twins, looked incredulous as they crossed their gorilla-like arms over their chests in unison. Syn merely watched me. I saw Chi think of something, her eyes intense, weighing her options. It was then that I felt my Gift again, I opened it up, allowing it to fill my mind, to rise from its slumber, drinking in the feel of its strength. It had missed me, and I it. I no longer felt a wariness towards it like I had under Jevin’s spell. I was no longer afraid to feel others’ minds now that I had my own back. I immediately let it out, sending it to Chi first.

She was considering letting me stay, just for a night or two, but the thought of having a Half under the same roof as her clan, not as a captive, frightened her. She had never actually met a Half, though she was hoping I didn’t know that. But she had heard stories, the same as we all had, and she was worried this was an act. I moved my Gift to the others, relishing the feeling of their minds in mine. Spade didn’t trust me, Horn and Halo didn’t trust anyone, but Syn…Syn’s mind was quiet. I felt a spark of something familiar from his mind, a companion to my own Gift that reached to me like an old friend, greeting my Gift’s return to the world.

“I know you're contemplating being kind, letting me stay, but you know what to expect from Halflings, and I can hear your doubts. You want to protect your clan. I know firsthand how…how deceitful my kind can be. Let Syn see my past, let him be the judge.”

I felt my heart stutter at my own suggestion, at knowing someone would see how pathetic I had been, how pathetic I still was, how I had been tricked first by James, then Jevin. How I had lost everything. How destroyed by my own memories, my own emotions I was, how weak I was. But it was the best option I had. I had to form a plan before I left. I was sure Jev must have been looking for me, scouring the city for his pedigree pet. I knew I needed a solid course of action before I returned to the city.

A part of me wanted to run from the place I had been imprisoned in, to get as far away as I could, but I knew that I needed somewhere to stay, just for a day or two, just until I had a plan of how to destroy Jevin for all he had done to me.

It was a small grace that Syn couldn’t tell my secrets at least, that at least only one other person in this world would know the disaster that had become of my life. I now knew what Chi had meant when she said he didn’t talk; he couldn’t. I could feel the loss of speech in his mind like a disease, leaking into every part of his psyche.

Chi looked shocked, but Syn wore a crooked little smile on his face at my proposition. It was the best expression I had ever seen on him.

“How did you know he can…or that I was...how could you possibly know that?”

Chimarah sounded like she couldn’t decide if she was angry or just surprised.

“I’m a Half, I can do anything.”

I spoke with a sly smirk, the closest to a smile my lips could form. Syn smiled back, shaking his head slightly, like I was the most amusing thing he had ever been in the presence of. Chi continued to look half-confused, half-frustrated, clearly not appreciating my attempt at grand humor.

“I can see it in his mind. I can tell what his Gifts are as soon as he thinks of them, now that the electrum is gone.”

I conceded and answered honestly, not wanting to so quickly ruin my only chance at a secure hideout. If they had been able to guard me here for weeks from Jevin, I couldn't imagine a more thickly veiled location.

“Fine, but if he finds even one thing from your past that gives us a reason ta fear you, you have ta go. Otherwise I’ll give you three days here. I don’t run a damned homeless shelter.”

She said the last part indignantly, and I wondered what other Darklings had come to her when they needed a place to hide.

“Let’s get this over with then. What do I do?”

My voice dragged, my smirk gone as I remembered what I had offered.

Spade answered in his deep, rumbling, calm way, giving me a distrustful look which I ignored.

“Nothing. Just…don’t make any sudden movements.”

Syn stepped forward, his face now serious. His eyes darkened until there was just a thin ring of white around the black. He reached a hand out towards me, slowly, and just barely touched the tips of his fingers to my temple, his brow furrowed in concentration. I opened my Gift as well, watching his mind as he looked into mine.

It was a strange feeling, his Gift was different from mine, like he could flip through my mind, looking at the events but not feeling what I had, more of a bystander to the events, whereas my Gift gave me some sort of phantom player's role. I was relieved he couldn’t feel my emotions, couldn’t truly read my mind, only see the scenes, snippets of my past. I could tell his Gift didn’t come easily to him, it strained him, I could see the effort written on his face. Where my own Gift felt as natural as breathing, he had to force it. I simply let my victim’s thoughts flow into my mind, he had to wrestle with them, eviscerating a part of his own mind to allow room for whatever it was he wished to see.

I saw him trying to find where my journey began, where he should start his search, and then he found it, the clan in my convenience store, the woods, the Gorshe. I watched his face as my Gift showed me what he saw, my talks with Kael, his easy, open friendship, the game of Master and it’s near-fatal end, Gabriel bringing me back, his dark eyes watching me when I woke up in the infirmary wing of the clan’s manor. He saw my dream of the Collector and I was glad he couldn’t feel the pull I had to join him. He saw my training, my growth into a real Darkling, a killer. He watched with sad eyes as I knelt in the woods and took my own life, too disgusted with the evil I thought I would become to want to live another moment. He saw Gabriel share his blood with me. He saw my growth in the clan, all my actions of trying to be a good person, a good Darkling.

He saw the alley fight with the Serpentine and I saw him wince when he learned of the pain the poison had caused me, the sacrifice I had given for my clan. I watched his jaw clench when he saw my fight with Gabriel, how he threw my gift back at me. Then the subsequent withdrawal of when I immersed myself into training, losing a part of myself because of my resentment. His brows shot up when he discovered that we were True Pairs, his eyes almost focusing on me, disbelief on his face before he re-gathered his Gift and dove back into my memories, his eyes taking a far-away, clouded look again.

He saw me with Gabriel on his mother’s anniversary, stroking back his hair as he fell asleep in my lap. He saw my dreams of his childhood and then the massacre in the woods of the hunters, the clan protecting the wolves, fighting alongside them. He saw the power I had, how Gabriel and I worked together in perfect harmony, invincible and swift like death himself. He swallowed hard when he saw the strength of my Sign.

Finally the time I was dreading came as he watched my memory of the cemetery, Juda and the revelation of my true bloodline, of what I really was, of what my partner really was. He saw the desertion of my clan, my weakness in not being able to kill Gabriel and though I knew he couldn’t feel my emotions, his mind was reeling with thoughts of how I could handle such a betrayal, such a deep wound, how I could have survived losing my Pair, the thing of legends. He had his answer a moment later as he saw me wandering the streets, looking less than human, like a broken doll, a shell void of anything on the inside. He saw me knock on Jevin’s door, practically beg for him to take the pain away, to quiet my mind.

He saw my first feed, he saw my first kill, he saw the tally grow on my arm, creeping up further and further with each errand Jev sent me out on. He saw the lack of joy I took in my kills, the quick efficiency I used to try and subdue my nature, to try and rob myself of any pleasure from my targets’ deaths. His brow wrinkled when he saw the torture I went through in my six weeks of servitude to Jevin, as if he could feel the pain I had gone through. Finally he saw his clan through my eyes, surrounding me in the alley where I had been captured, and then he stepped back, his jaw clenched and eyes wide.

_The one you loved betrayed you. I am sorry._

Syn’s first thought made my heart burn. The first time he had ever been able to communicate with me. I stared back in response.

_I thought Halflings couldn’t love, I thought they didn’t have hearts._

“Most don’t.”

Was all I could grind out between my clenched teeth, anger building in me.

_You will kill yourself when your blood begins to take you over. You plan to fight it until then. You…you plan to be the first light Halfling._

There was no question in his mind, he was merely making statements. I heard his next thought before it even started.

“Don’t talk about him! Don’t ever talk about him! My Pair _is dead!”_

I yelled the words, hissing the end out. Just the thought of him, the reliving of his betrayal, made a searing pain rip through my mind and rage boil up in me. Even if some sick, masochistic part of me missed him, I hated him more. I always would.

Syn stepped back slightly, his palms showing at my outburst.

_True Pairs are practically just myths, but I suppose it doesn’t do any good if he’s dark. If it gives you any peace, remember, the deepest ring of Hell is reserved for traitors. At least half the power such a gift gives will be used for good, for a while at least. Hold out as long as you can._

Even just speaking about Gabriel and having another being in the world know of the demon he really was made my Shift roll under my skin, pleading with me to be let out. I bit down on it, keeping it at bay painfully. I looked away though, no longer wanting to talk. I closed my Gift as Syn stepped back to his clan. Chi quietly asked if I was safe and he gave a curt nod before settling his eyes on me once more. I could tell the others were confused from only hearing half the conversation Syn and I had shared, but I had no desire to explain.

“Is she like he said? Is she really…good?”

Chi tried to whisper, but I heard. I looked up to see Syn nod, a thoughtful look in his gold-flecked eyes.

“Who said?”

I straightened as I asked, startling Chi into taking another small step back from me.

“The rumors, that’s all.”

“But you said ‘he’, who is _he_.”

My voice took on a dangerous edge, my Shift flexing once more, begging to be released after so long in its cage. I couldn’t hold it, or maybe I just didn’t want to anymore and I felt it tear from me like a hurricane. The power was magnificent. I smiled as my teeth sharpened, my world plunged into shades of grey and brilliant whites. Horn and Halo’s eyes darkened a moment later as they positioned themselves in front of their clan members and their loyalty both impressed and angered me. I had had that once.

“Just tell me who and I’ll leave.”

I gave another devious smile, showing off my teeth as I slid the words out. Horn took a step forward, quickly mirrored by his brother and I dropped into a defensive position, pushing off from the wall, ready for a fight. I breathed out two more strength names and an endurance and by the time their energy came to me I felt almost normal. My Shift was delighted with the prospect of shedding blood, anyone’s, even Halo and his brother’s, though I had nothing against them.

Suddenly Chi and Syn stepped between the twins and I, she glared at them as Syn faced me, a look of deep disappointment in his eyes. I opened my Gift to him, just his mind, hoping he’d tell me what I wanted to know. I was met by his answer immediately.

_There is a prophecy of a Halfling. I do not know the entirety of it, but it is said that there will be one who defeats their nature and walks on the Light side. They say this Half will tilt the balance. That is all Chi meant. She wanted to know if it was true that a Halfling could fight their nature…at least for a time._

“You say you don’t know the whole prophecy, who does? Where can I find him?”

My Shift was still prickling, running over the surface of my skin and mind, but I left my hostile stance as I spoke, knowing there would be no fight now that Chi and Syn had stepped in.

“We stay away from prophets and I don’t know where you would even find one, they are a dying breed, maybe some are with the Mages, though they’re hard ta track if they don’t want ta be found. It’s more of a legend than a prophecy, it might not even be real. I just know your reputation, the city is full of whispers of you. You were wrecking havoc but nobody knew for who or why, what your goal was, if you even had one. You’re connection ta Jevin was buried, he tends ta keep his weapons a secret. Paranoid little prick. Everything about you is a secret ta this city. No one knows who you are, where you came from, if you have a clan or alliances. No one even knows what side you’re on. Hell, we don’t even know your name.”

“I’m on no side. I don’t care about light or dark. I’m going to do what I want. I’m unaligned, with a side, a clan, anyone."

As soon as I said the words I knew they were true. I would try to do good, to _be_ good, but I wouldn’t get into the politics, _I_ would decide what was good, who was good. I wouldn’t ever spare a light who deserved death just because they claimed to be light, and I wouldn’t kill a dark unless I had a reason. I would make my own decisions now, my own path. No one would tell me what to do or who to go after. I would kill anyone who deserved it, only the guiltless would be safe.

“But you _are_ good, a light, regardless of if you think you are…I do.”

Chi’s lilting voice roused me from my thoughts, and I realized I had been back in my own mind, just like I used to do constantly, before the clan, living in my own head, ignoring the world around me. It was different than it had been with Jevin, I had used my mind as an escape with him, a blockade from the horror around me, but this had simply been a conversation with myself, thoughts between friends. It felt nice to have my mind back, even with the emotions constantly threatening to bring down the shabby walls I kept trying to build against them.

“The rumors in the city fly about you, everyone has a different version, that you’re evil, good, a Fallen, simply lucky or sneaky, that your kills are cheap, that they’re skilled, that you’re a monster, a Demon, an Angel, a blessed human, that there isn’t just one of you, but it’s a whole clan that has been causin’ such chaos. You’ve toppled clans and alliances on both sides by Jevin’s orders. Regardless of what people believe though, everyone knows of your power, that you can hide whatever it is you are, that you go undetected among every kind. They were calling you Mors, death. Some even believed you _were_ death, a reaper of some kind. And then the hits just stopped, like you disappeared just as quickly as you came. You’re the thing of legends in the city right now.”

Chi spoke calmly, like she was explaining a news story to me, not the whispers of a city I had terrorized for most the winter.

I absently rubbed the scars on my arm, the tally of those I had killed. I hadn’t known my targets had been powerful, I hadn’t known I was changing the Over and Underworld politics of a city. I had only known my orders…and I didn’t have a choice.

Chimarah took a deep breath before she continued, stepping back to be in line with her clan, apparently no longer feeling the need to separate me from the twins.

“I keep my word, I said I wouldn’t tell what you are and I meant it. We won’t breathe a word of your bloodline ta anybody. Ta be frank I don’t want the attention and I doubt you do either. We don’t know your name, your past, save for Syn, but he won’t tell. No one knows of your connection ta Jev, or your bind ta him. No one knows anything about you. And I’ll keep my promises ta the end, you can leave or stay for a bit, you’re free ta do what you like.”

A part of me felt relief that I would have a safe place to stay and that Chi would keep my secrets, that no one would know who I was, but another part of me was wary of spending any time with another clan, of having to trust people I didn’t even know to protect my secrets, to keep their word. I hadn’t had much luck with trusting others, with clan’s or Darklings or anyone. Everyone I had ever trusted in some capacity had turned on me, even Jevin, who I had never really trusted, had used my weakness to his advantage. Was I really about to trust my captors to keep their promises to me when no one else ever had? I ran through my options, but short of killing the entire clan to ensure my secrets’ safety, I didn’t have much of a choice but to trust in Chi’s words.

I nodded to her before walking to the door, leaving the clan behind me. I wanted to see the sky, the snow, the winter that had been passing me by as I stayed holed up in my prison. I would stay with Chi and her clan for a couple nights, just to give me time to think, to plan, but I had to go outside first, to convince myself I was really free.


	11. Chapter 11

**We've felt our failures.**

**We've watched our passions leave,**

**but we're still breathing on.**

_La Dispute - The Last Lost Continent_

 

I actually felt something similar to happiness, in a small way, the smallest of ways, when I walked out into the snow. I hated winter, hated the cold and the snow and the wind, but I almost remembered what a true smile felt like as I stood in the middle of the swirling white, free from Jevin, free from my prison, free to do whatever I wanted. I wanted to run through the grey streets filled with dirty snow and find a forest with a trail. I wanted to lay under an evergreen, my feet at its trunk, my head peeking from under the branches, staring up at the sky, watching the little white flakes settle on the dark green above me. I wanted to breathe in the cold, clean air. I wanted to daydream with my eyes shut and my mind open, my emotions, my past ignored. But I couldn’t, I knew I had to be smart, safe, hidden, and most importantly, warm. I couldn’t do any of the things I wanted if I froze to death first.

I stood outside, my arms outstretched, head thrown back, and watched the perfectly new, clean snow fall for only a minute or two, watching it as it floated down to me from the black night sky broken up by puffs of clouds. I got cold quickly, I always had, and regardless of my new found enjoyment of the winter, I still hated being cold.

Back inside the clan was pretending to be busy, cooking or reading, except Horn who was snoring softly on one of the cots in the main room, adjacent to the small room I had lived in for the past two and a half weeks. It was almost impressive how quickly the twin had fallen asleep. I could tell those of the clan that were conscious were watching me every chance they got, when they thought I wouldn’t notice. At first I watched them too, keeping my Gift open, listening to their thoughts, but I was surprised by how quickly that bored me.

_I wonder if she’ll kill us in our sleep? Maybe she’ll eat us, do Halflings do that? They probably do._

_Why is she alone? Shouldn’t she be the leader of a clan? And what was she talking to Syn about? How was she talking to him? He can’t talk…can she read minds? Oh damn, I hope she can’t read minds._

_Where did she come from? How does no one know who she is? How can she control herself? How can she hide herself? She said she didn’t even know her percentage until just before Jevin, but how can a Half not know? Who are her parents? Her allies? She has to have someone, somewhere. No one can survive on their own for long. Well, she isn’t joining me an’ my brothers. Three days, that’s all she gets. We don’t get involved in things like this, lie low, that’s what we know._

_I wonder what her name is._

_She’ll probably kill us in our sleep. I’m not sleeping tonight. I won’t let Horn either._

Each mind had a distinct flavor, something I had never noticed before, but sitting in the corner, staring out at the room before me and comparing each of their minds showed me there was certainly a different taste to each, a different aura almost, a hue. Regardless of my discovery, I was uninterested within five minutes. Halo seemed convinced I was a murderous cannibal who wanted nothing more than to eat him and his twin. Spade seemed intent on no longer thinking anything even remotely interesting after he caught me smirking at him when he thought about the very real possibility of me being a mind-reader. Chimarah simply seemed curious about me, a little guarded, but she wasn’t thinking of nearly as far-fetched of scenarios as her brothers. Syn’s mind was oddly quiet, just occasionally wondering small things about me, my name, my age, my life before the memories he had seen.

Instead of wading through their broken-record thoughts I focused on myself. If I only had a few days of sanctuary I needed to learn to handle my emotions, and handle them quickly. The temporary walls I had built were good enough for now, but I still felt crushed, though it was tolerable. The work I had done the past few days and sporadically in the past weeks when I had had the time and strength made my pain bearable, but I didn’t want just bearable, I wanted strength, mental strength, something I still didn’t have. I needed to be able to manage my emotions, my anger and hurt, harness them. If I couldn’t get rid of them, I hoped I could at least put them to good use.

I already decided I would return to Jevin as soon as I left Chimarah and her clan. But I wouldn’t return as his pet, I would kill him for what he had done to me. It wouldn’t be hard, I knew I could do it, even with whatever hybrid strengths he had. Then I would continue my work in the city, I would continue my tally, this time making my own blacklist. Eventually I would go to another city, and another, I would have no boundaries, nothing would stop me until I was killed, or until I killed myself. I knew I needed a place to stay, but I figured if I had survived months with the clan, barely sleeping and training eighteen hours a day, I could easily survive on the streets. I didn’t need a true roof over my head to go back to being the assassin I had been, I just needed something that would keep me dry and from freezing to death. There were plenty of abandoned buildings in my monster city, any one of them would do.

My bag of belongings from the night I was captured was next to me where I sat in the corner, my back to the wall, watching the room. It had all the weapons I would need, along with extra clothes. I still had the coat I left Jevin’s house with, I had the determination, and now I had the plan. I smiled as I pictured the ways I could kill him, but then stopped myself, realizing I would only be feeding my nature more, strengthening it to take me over that much sooner if I let myself enjoy my kills. I had to continue as I had under him, efficiency and no fun at all. A shot to the heart, a slit throat, a blade of air, nothing more. Nothing slow and bloody and delicious. Nothing I craved. Even for Jev, even though he deserved the worst I could dream up. I felt my Shift roll in me just thinking of him, his face, his cold skin. I squeezed my eyes shut to block out the memory.

I sighed without realizing it, put out that I would have to kill Jev humanely, unlike the dog he was. I felt Syn’s eyes on me a moment later, one eyebrow raised in silent question.

_Are we boring you?_

I attempted to smile at him, but all I got was a slight curve at the corner of my lips. He surprised me by getting up from his spot on his cot where he had been polishing what looked to be an extensive set of glass throwing daggers, and came to sit next to me. He sat close, close enough that he thought I would be able to answer his thoughts without the others hearing.

I found it a little strange how quiet the warehouse was; six people yet you could hear the muted sound of the snow slide off the roof and fall to the ground outside the windows. My clan had constantly been training, or talking, fighting, laughing, cooking. Even Nevaeh and Kael’s bickering seemed better than the eerie silence of Chi and her brothers. Maybe it was my presence, they obviously weren’t at ease with me there, but somehow it felt like more than that, like they really didn’t talk much, like they weren’t like my clan had been. They seemed close, I could tell that much, but it was almost like coworkers, where mine had been a family. I scoffed at the thought. We hadn’t been a family, just a brittle fraud.

I didn’t want to admit I was missing the social obligations of my clan, but I was. I could remember so many times while I was adjusting to my new life thinking of how difficult it was to constantly be surrounded by others, ‘on’ for others, but now, sitting silently, even with Syn next to me, I felt alone, I felt lonely. A moment later the loneliness changed to anger, to the bitter betrayal I knew so well. I shouldn’t feel lonely, I shouldn’t feel loss, I had been _left_ , deserted, thrown away. My so called family had abandoned me for something that wasn’t even my fault, wasn’t within my control. I hated them, all of them. I didn’t miss them, there was nothing to miss, just a lie of the loyalty, of the family I thought I had found in them.

I tried to still my mind, realizing my anger was making my hands ball at my sides, my nails biting into my palms. Syn seemed to not notice as he sat quietly next to me, polishing his knives until they shown like ice. I tried to focus my attention on watching him, to keep my mind off my past, to keep my Shift from straining against its cage. I realized quickly that the small knives seemed impossibly sharp, the points so thin I couldn’t understand how they didn’t break off. Syn saw me looking and handed one to me, along with a length of soft cloth. He placed a small bottle of dark liquid between us, and then demonstrated how I should put a little of the inky polish on the cloth and rub the top and bottom of the knife until the solution soaked in and looked clear, making the blade shine like a diamond. He made sure to show me how to avoid the point and edges as I polished the rest of the dagger.

I found the work relaxing. Soon I noticed my emotions weren't crashing against me as I polished, in fact I had spent the better part of a half hour without once cringing or feeling my muscles involuntarily tense as a ripple of pain ran down my back or through my chest, even the constant ache in my mind was less. I set the little knife down and glanced to Syn, whose mind had been as quiet as mine as he worked on his own glass blade.

“Thank you.”

I whispered over to him, before reaching for another of the daggers. He laid a big hand on mine, moving it back to my lap, a smile on his lips as he leaned back against the wall and took a deep breath. A moment later the knife I had just finished cleaning quivered slightly where it lay and then slowly rose, floating in front of us, then another joined it, and a third. Syn’s smile grew when he saw the wonder on my face.

“Chi wasn’t lying when she said you had many Gifts.”

I bumped his shoulder, trying to allow the seedlings of amusement to grow in me, something I hadn’t felt for months.

_I do have many Gifts, but this is my Sign. I’m an Earthmin, meaning I’m not the healing kind, I have no connection to nature and I can’t do many of the things full Earths can…but I can control soil, dirt, the Earth in its most literal form. These are glass, tempered to be strong as steel and I can control them like an extension of myself. We don’t fight often, but these have come in handy on occasion._

My smile grew as he continued to play with his Sign, letting the knives hover and dance before us. Spade and Chi were watching, one with a guarded look, the other with obvious interest at how I was reacting, while Halo studiously ignored us and his brother continued snoring. After a few more minutes of theatrical knife-dances I had an idea for my own Sign. I pulled it around myself, feeling my hair lift slightly about my shoulders. Syn had the hint of worry on his face, but I couldn’t blame him, he had seen the devastation my Sign could bring when I wanted.

Instead of a wall or blade of air, I made a small shelf, a little ledge for the knife closest to me to sit on. It was easy to mold the air into a little holder, keeping the knife level, keeping it able to pierce whoever I sent the shelf out towards. I felt the resistance of Syn’s Sign against mine for only a moment before the knife floated up higher, my Sign controlling it instead of his.

I looked over at him and smiled, he still looked nervous, but he smiled back. The rest of the clan didn’t seem so amused.

“Okay, maybe we put the flying death away now.”

Halo’s voice broke the monotonous quiet drone of Horn’s snore and I lost my focus, the knife falling to the ground with a quiet clink. Syn gave me a quick, apologetic smile before placing his knives back into the woven bag they had come from and standing, returning to his cot and tucking the bag away.

“You know I could kill you with my Sign easily, right? I wouldn’t need Syn’s little deathtraps.”

I smirked over at Halo, letting his annoying thoughts get under my skin despite my best efforts.

“You think I’d be so easily killed? I’m mildly insulted.”

“Well then, I mildly apologize.”

“Y-“

Halo made a move to stand but froze when he heard Chi clear her throat daintily from where she sat with Spade, her eyes little dark brown slivers as she glared at him.

“I’m not planning to eat you either. I’m a Half, not a cannibal. I don’t even eat meat.”

I couldn’t help but goad him a bit, he was just so easy to dislike, even his face somehow had a look about it that made me want to kick it in. I smiled sweetly at Chi after Halo declined to reply.

I pulled out some of my own weapons from my bag, studiously cleaning them and trying to ignore the room as it watched me. Apparently in my addiction I hadn’t cared much for my weapons, but now I almost felt guilty for the reprimandable condition they were in. Kael had always taught me to take care of the things that could potentially save my life, so I spent the next hour chipping dried blood from and buffing the various weapons I had with me to within an inch of their lives.

I left the curved and serrated blades for last, knowing they would be difficult. The last thing I wanted to do was look clumsy in front of the clan and cut myself as I tried to clean their edges. Luckily a memory tickled at my mind as I cleaned the last easy blade, something my Pair had done once, a dulling word he had used. I didn’t want to think of him, but it seemed like I might as well try to continue learning from my past, especially since I no longer had any of the clan’s books to study from, or Jevin’s library. I sighed and closed my eyes as I tried to picture the memory.

_Standing in front of him, he had a strange look on his face. He held a small knife out to me, barely bigger than a pen. I was about to take it from him, when he said something, something under his breath, just barely whispered, and the edges of the knife seemed to melt, until they were no longer sharp at all, but rounded like an old letter opener. He reached forward, his eyes locked on mine as he slid the dulled blade between…But what had the word been; siv-te, shik-te…_

I whispered the words one by one as I sat, holding the knife out in front of me, peeking an eye open after each one to see if it had worked. _Siv-ti, shik-ta, shiv-ta._ I opened my eyes just in time to see the edges of the blade melt downwards, like a candle’s wax as it burns, running down in rounded drips. I smiled a little, amazed I had remembered a word I hadn’t even thought I’d heard. But then there was something more, I could feel it just out of my grasp, like something at the corner of your eye you can’t quite focus on.

I rubbed my fingers lightly along the edge of the now harmless knife as it curved. _Ta-vish_. The word came from my mouth without me even thinking it and the blade immediately became razor thin again. I pulled my hand back a second too late, a small cut on the tip of my finger. I swore under my breath as I sucked on it. When I looked back to the blade I could see a pair of curious eyes in the background, staring at me widely. Chi was watching, but I had been too caught up in my memories to notice.

“What was that? Do you…do you know their - your - language?”

By now the rest of the clan was watching me too, and I suddenly felt like I used to, back in my old life, when I would get unwanted attention for being some kind of freak or somehow different from all the other normal people around me.

“No, it’s just…it’s just something I heard before, from someone like me. That’s all.”

I knew that wasn’t entirely true, I hadn’t actually heard him ever say the word, and I had certainly never heard him say the reverse. But I _knew_ it, it had just come to me.

Chimarah seemed to be making a pros and cons list in her head, but I wasn’t interested in eavesdropping. A moment later my decision proved to be advantageous since she voiced her thoughts anyways.

“Will you teach us the… rarer Spoken you’ve heard? Not all of us have the advantage of…of knowin’ other’s like you, of learnin’ from those with such…direct, uh, lines ta the originators of Spoken. We don’t have a Book of Dust.”

Halo snorted from the corner cot he had been laying in, but said nothing. Spade actually looked interested, though maybe a little wary as well. Syn simply looked delighted that someone was acknowledging my presence, his gold-brown eyes squinted slightly from his smile. Horn continued to snore peacefully from his cot.

“I really don’t know much. I’ve only been trained a couple months, I didn’t even know-“

I stopped myself before I let slip too much about me, snapping my mouth shut on the words I had been about to say.

“A couple months?”

Chi sounded genuinely shocked, but I was saved from answering by a sneering voice from Halo’s cot.

“Why would I want to learn from some smug Halfling? She didn’t even know she was a Half until Jev got her, what, eight weeks ago? Come on Chich, she wouldn’t tell us anything useful even if she did know. She’s a damn Half-breed.“

“ _Kalma re’eh_.”

The words flew from my mouth without a conscious thought, again, as if simply wishing Halo would be quiet somehow morphed into a Spoken command on my lips. I snapped my mouth shut again as soon as I heard the words leave me.

Halo’s mouth closed as abruptly as mine, his eyes confused for a second before they changed to furious. He glared at me from across the room but I hardly noticed. Instead my mind was racing with new words, words I had never heard before yet somehow knew. I knew their meaning, their power.

“What was that one? Is he okay?”

Chi stood now, seeming unsure of if I had just injured one of her clan, or merely made him shut up.

“It means silence, it’s a command; _kalma re’eh_. You-I can either say it like I just did, and have nothing happen, or I can direct it at someone and they are…temporarily unable to make a sound.”

I couldn’t believe the words I was saying, but I _knew_ them, I _knew_ they were true, as if Kael was right there with me, teaching me, as if…as if Gabriel were whispering the words he knew so well into my ear. I had never gotten very far in my Spoken training, especially since Kael mainly only knew heals and I had proved to be an abhorrent healer. Gabriel had been the one who knew the most words, maybe all of them if his boasts had been true, but he had never spent much time teaching them to me.

More and more I began to realize how I had wasted so much of my time with the clan, so much of the time I could have spent learning all the things I now wished I knew. Instead I had focused so heavily on the physical aspects of my training; fighting, fittness, weaponry, that I had missed the opportunity to learn the things I no longer had any means to. I could practice fighting anytime I wanted, what I really wished I had was my own Book of Dust to study from, but it was too late for that now.

Chi was staring open-mouthed at me now as Syn continued to smile by her side. He grabbed her by the wrist, his big hand completely swallowing up hers, as he walked over, gently dragging her with him. Spade followed too, if more slowly. Just before sitting, Chi cleared her throat, giving a poignant look over her shoulder to Halo, clearly meaning he should be a part of my teaching lesson. He tried to open his mouth to disagree, but nothing but a slight wheeze of air came out. He hit his brother’s shoulder as he stalked past, waking him and motioning for him to come join the company in my corner.

Syn sat the closest to me, like he had earlier, with Chi directly across from me, Horn and Halo on one side of her, Spade on the other. She had a notebook already opened on her lap, and the eager expression on her face made her seem even younger than she looked.

“How old are you?”

I asked abruptly, suddenly feeling almost motherly towards the girl in front of me.

“Is that how this will work? Trading answers? Are you sure you want my age ta be your first trade?"

Chi sounded friendly now, no longer unsure or even suspicious.

“I guess so.”

“I’m fifteen, sixteen this spring.”

I had to try and hide my shock, not wanting to upset her, but fifteen? Running a clan? I couldn’t even imagine.

“Where are your parents?”

I said it almost accusingly, like she should be ashamed of how old she acted, but I knew that was just my surprise talking. Luckily, she didn’t seem to take any personal offense to my question.

“That’s your second question, don’t think I’m not keepin’ track. And I was adopted, met Spade when I was twelve and came here with him, you could say I took ‘running away’ ta a bit of an extreme. I’m from Ireland.”

“Yeah, I figured.”

I muttered under my breath, starting to feel a little bitter that she had learned what she was a decade earlier than I.

“Found Horn and Halo a few months after gettin’ here, Syn when I was thirteen, we had a friendly competition ta decide the leader, once we knew we’d be sticking with each other for awhile. I won.”

She smiled slyly at me, her black, curly hair framing her dark face.

“Now it’s my turn; silence you said was _kalm-a re-eh_?”

She paused to write the word before continuing.

“What about speak? That seems helpful ta know.”

She leveled her eyes with me again, curiosity filling them.

I closed my eyes for a moment, trying to see if the word was hidden somewhere in the recesses of my mind, before opening them once I found it.

“Before I tell you, will you write a second copy for me, of the words I say? I…I don’t want to forget them.”

Chi nodded at my request, though she looked confused again.

“ _Ka li mak va_. Speak to me.”

“Are they all commands? Do they all have the power ta…well, do they all work like the silence?”

“No, and speak wouldn’t work on someone like Syn, who can’t. It only works if you’re of a higher percentage too. The closer to _Felle_ you are, the more the words listen to your command. None of these words would work if one of you tried them on me.”

I sat back after I spoke, trying to remember where I knew _Felle_ from or how I knew so much about words I had never even heard. It was literally as if the information was just appearing in my mind, even though I didn’t know where it came from. It was giving me a headache.

“Oh, _Felle_ means Fallen.” I added quickly, after seeing the looks I was getting.

_What is love in Spoken? Do the Felle have a word for it?_

I felt Syn’s thoughts fill my mind. I looked up to see softness in his eyes again, and I knew who he was thinking of. He was thinking of my Pair, of the moments he had seen us together in my past. He was wondering if Fallen could love, if they could be _in_ love, if they had hearts, souls. Because of me he believed Halflings did.

“ _Na’rast_.”

I said the word quietly, the beauty of it seemed to deserve being spoken softly. It hurt just to say it, though I couldn’t understand why, like the word came with a longing in my chest, an ache that stopped me from being able to pull a full breath in.

Chi broke my thoughts by asking what _na’rast_ meant, but I pretended to not know, which she quickly believed due to my confused behavior.

“I’m sorry, I don’t even remember how I know these words. Like I said, I hardly studied anything but the Heals, which I can’t do anyways. I never cared about Spoken. I never even really tried to learn it. My training was cut short.”

My last words came out bitterly.

Chi nodded before turning to Halo.

“ _Ka li mak va_.”

He cleared his throat a moment later before replying with a muttered thank you to his leader and continuing to glare at me from across the circle we sat in.

“Wait, you can’t do Heals?”

Spade spoke up for the first time since joining the circle, a quizzical look on his face.

“A Half that can’t heal? Some people say they can heal themselves, from near death even because they’re so, so strong and, I don’t know, I just thought healing was a forte of Halflings, and you can’t do it _at all_?”

His voice sounded almost disbelieving, and I felt a slight knock to my pride. It wasn’t _my_ fault I couldn’t heal. I was meant to destroy, not rebuild.

“I was trained by the best healer I’ve ever met, an Earth with a strong connection to his Sign, but even he couldn’t get me to be able to heal so much as a scratch.”

I answered honestly, not being able to think of any reason I shouldn’t.

“Are they dead?”

Horn spoke this time, no emotion on his face, though his twin wore a sneer.

I had to swallow hard before answering, the pain I thought I had control of suddenly resurfacing, the claws of betrayal raking through my mind.

“Yes. They’re dead.”

Syn shifted his seated position, nudging me with his knee in the process, but I ignored him and instead stared down at my hands in my lap.

“I’m sorry, dearie.” Chimarah said quietly, laying a tiny, warm hand on mine. There was a beat of silence before she spoke again, her voice lighter as if she was trying to move the conversation to safer ground.

“I’ve forgotten who’s turn it is, so I’ll be hospitable. You’re our, uh, guest, you ask the next question.”

I didn’t even need to pause before I thought of what I wanted to know.

“What are your percentages?”

Chi nodded, looking thoughtful before she spoke.

“Well, I don’t really know I s’ppose, adopted n’ all, but I know Horn and Halo are less than me, Syn is more.”

She looked over at the twins next, her eyebrows raised, waiting for them to answer my question. Instead Spade spoke, filling the void.

“I’m a thirty-second and the healer of the group. I don’t have a Sign, but I’m good with curses, as you know from my electrum.”

He smiled before realizing it might not be wise to let me know he was so directly responsible for my captivity and moved his mouth into a tight line. I merely nodded before looking to Syn and sending him my Gift once more. In the width of a second I was transported to his memory, to when he had learned what he was, to when he had first used his Shift.

_I was in a field, high corn swaying all around me, there was a little blonde boy kneeling in the deep lines from a tractor, mud up to his shins. I saw he was laying on something, a body. His small back heaving up and down as he cried. An old woman lay still on the ground, her white hair caked with blood, deep cuts swept across the side of her head, the white of bone showing through the tattered skin. The corn rustled and the boy spun around, gold-flecked brown eyes staring up in terror as a thin man emerged._

_A jolt ran through my mind as I recognized him. His bright blue eyes were the same though he wore his blonde hair shorter than the last time I had seen him. He still held himself like he was used to being watched, admired, like a politician, pompous and slimy. Juda. My jaw clenched as I watched him slowly walk towards the little boy, careful to avoid the muddier spots lest he dirty his polished shoes._

_“Hello, child.”_

_His voice came out just as I remembered it, and I felt my Shift try to jump from me, the rage I had felt that night resurfacing just from the sight of him._

_The little blonde boy tried to scuttle backwards, but he wouldn’t leave the old woman’s corpse and was too weak to drag it with him in the muck._

_“Oh, I’m so sorry. Is this your grandmother? Did I kill your nana? How thoughtless of me.”_

_Juda’s voice slunk through the air, his mocking sincerity lost on the small boy before him._

_The little boy’s fear seemed to melt before my eyes as his own darkened into black pits. He bared his teeth as he slowly stood before the man, keeping himself between Juda and his grandmother’s corpse. Syn let out a shriek as he dove at Juda, no weapon, no chance at victory, but he still flung himself at the one who had killed his caretaker, pure rage on his childish face._

_Within a moment Juda had the little boy on the ground, his arm twisted behind him, his face shoved into the mud. Juda’s smile grew as he twisted Syn’s arm until it snapped. I heard the pained cry turn to a choke as Juda pushed the boy’s head further into the wet ground, drowning him in the dirty water._

_“She was a pathetic woman, she hasn’t even trained you because she was too weak! Because she didn’t want to give you the gift of who you are! You should already be so much stronger than you are, but instead she made you human. I thought she would raise you better, like she did with her own children. Two twenties, your parents had such promise! And their parents, keeping Darklings with Darklings, that’s the true way to live, to breed! She had so much potential…but with old age comes softness, and you are the proof of that.”_

_Juda heaved the boy up from the mud, turning him so he could look in his face._

_”I’ll train you instead, since she couldn’t, since she would rather coddle yo-“_

_Juda’s words were abruptly cut off as Syn spit a mouthful of mud in his face._

_“Burn in Hell, you monster!”_

_I almost cringed in the memory, feeling a mixture of pride at the young Syn’s bravery and dread as I watched Juda’s dirt-splashed face take on a look of crazed rage. Juda spit the mire that had made it into his mouth before smashing his fist into Syn’s muddy face, over and over until I heard the crunch of bone and the boy cried out before slumping in Juda’s arms, barely conscious._

_What I saw next made my stomach twist and my hatred of Juda burn even deeper. He grabbed the boy’s chin, opening his mouth until it was wide enough for him to reach his clawed hand in. I remembered perfectly the pointed metal gloves he wore when I first had the displeasure of meeting him in the cemetery, the burning pain I had felt as he dragged their razor points across my neck. Now instead of leaving gouges with them, he dug them down into Syn’s tongue, cutting into it and ripping it from his mouth._

_The boy’s broken arm twitched at his side, but the shock and trauma were more than his small body could handle. Juda dropped the limp weight to the ground, kicking him onto his back. He stayed for a moment, just watching with a smile on his lips as blood filled Syn’s throat and he lost consciousness, his attempts at breathing quickly turning to weaker and weaker gurgles._

My head hit the wall as I jerked back from Syn’s mind. My jaw clenched, chest tight, stomach feeling sick. I swallowed hard, trying to push back the bile in my throat. I had never felt so deeply into a person’s mind, besides Jevin’s, but he had made it sound like that was because he was a hybrid, not because my Gift was continuing to grow, to strengthen. I looked up to see the entire clan watching me, most with wide eyes, though Syn’s were questioning, waiting to see my reaction to his memory.

I stared into his golden-brown eyes and couldn’t believe the man that little boy had become, the goodness there, even after the pain he had gone through, the ugliness he had seen in the world at such a young age. I hadn’t even seen a hint of recognition in Syn’s mind when he saw Juda in my memories, but he must have recognized him; you don’t forget a night like that, you don’t forget your family’s killer.

I raised my hand, placing it on his cheek gently before I spoke.

“If my clan hadn’t already killed the man that did this to you, I would hunt him down and kill him tonight. I’m so sorry.”

_I’ve wanted someone to know what happened to me, really know, for so long. Thank you for seeing it with me. And I’m glad he’s dead, I’m glad I didn’t have to do it._

I nodded, replacing my hand to my lap as I tried to bury the anger I felt. He was already dead, I couldn’t do anything more to avenge Syn. Juda was already dead. I paused to compose my voice before speaking to the clan again.

“So Spade’s a Thirty-second, Syn’s a twentieth, Chi isn’t sure…that only leaves you two. Answer up, don’t make me make you, you know I can.”

I smiled sweetly at the twins, half of whom were once again glaring at me, despite the strange scene he had just witnessed with Syn and myself. Horn simply seemed uninterested, as usual.

Chimarah gave them another heavy look and finally Horn opened his mouth to speak.

“Thirty-seconds. Parents were too, went insane when we were teens, about twelve years ago. We stuck with each other until we found our home with this clan.”

He said the words matter-of-factly, but I heard his mind. He had hated hearing my screams when I was going through my own insanity from Jev’s blood. It had reminded him of his mother, back when he was seventeen, right before she died and he left with his brother.

“I’m sorry about your parents. I was adopted. So I didn’t know my own…that’s how I went so long without knowing I was a Half.”

Chi looked interested at my most recent admission, probably at the chance to meet another adopted Darkling like herself.

“So when did you run away? When did you meet others and learn what you were, I mean Darkling, not the Half part.”

She was leaning forward now, looking very young and eager as she waited for my response.

“I never ran away from home, I moved out, went to college…occasionally. I didn’t learn until this year that this…that this world even existed.”

I was met with shocked silence. A flash of when my own clan had learned that I really didn’t know what I was rippled through my mind, making me wince, making me squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden pain the memory brought. When I reopened them the others were still staring, opened mouths, all but Syn, who kept his mouth closed, as always.

Halo was the one that broke the silence.

“You didn’t _know_ until this year? _This_ year…like within the last twelve calendar months kind of year? And you aren’t…”

He spun his finger by his head, making the sign for crazy, but I wasn’t insulted. I understood that Darklings needed others, that I was lucky to have gone so long without going on some murderous rampage or worse.

Chi spoke after a long pause.

“Just more proof that you’re different.”

Our trading of words and stories continued late into the night, and by the end of it I had two columns of words in Chi’s messy handwriting. I decided I’d add more as I thought of them, since they still seemed to be appearing in my mind without provocation.

I was laying in my cot waiting for sleep when I had to fight the sob that tried to escape my throat as a phrase came into my mind, one I had heard before but never understood.

_Niabe on ire has._

Kael had said it to me when I left to find Gabriel, when he had disappeared to the city and I went out to bring him back, before the Serpentine poison had taken us both.

 _Return to Heaven or here_.

He had been blessing me, asking me to live, or live on in Heaven and that made something deep in my chest squeeze. That one memory which I hadn’t even understood made me miss him more than I was willing to admit to myself.

The next words appeared on my lips before my mind, and I didn’t bother trying to fight the tears that slid down my temples and into my hair. My tears were silent, Chi’s clan would never know, so I let them come. The words were so beautiful, so pure. They felt different from the others. They felt like someone was speaking them to me, directly into my mind, to my heart. My tears burned as I repeated the words over and over again.

_Na’rast, mielek. Navzda na’rast mielek._

_Love, I’m yours. I am yours forever._


	12. Chapter 12

**Hey little hole in my heart, you've grown so cold.**

**You've run out of soul to pump through my veins.**

**So you might as well turn to stone.**

_Adestria - Scarlet Letter_

 

The door opened and I saw what he meant.

_You’ll be more compliant once you see the gifts I have for you._

He hadn't lied, I should have known he wouldn’t, he had never been the bluffing type. My heart sank to its lowest when I saw them, at least before I thought I could make a choice; refuse him and be killed, refuse him and be kept captive, tortured, but this? This made my choice bear a weight I had hoped to never shoulder. I would still choose the same, I would still refuse him, I had to, they would want me to, but it didn’t make the decision any easier. Even knowing that you're doing the right thing can’t ease a conscience sometimes, especially when your friends, your family, are the leverage.

Kael was the first I saw, Nevaeh next to him, both tied and gagged and on their knees, both clearly beaten, blood caked down one side of my brother’s face. Nevaeh wouldn’t look at me, but I hadn’t expected her to, she still hated me. I was still a demon in her eyes. Kael was looking right at me, forever the opposite of his sister, his eyes begging me to let him die, to not give in to my father. I told him I wouldn’t, not out loud or in any visible way, but I knew he understood me, he always understood me. Relief filled his eyes before he gave a small nod to me and stared down at the floor, resigned to his fate.

My father stood just behind them, his dark hair gleaming in the low light, a smirk on his face. I hated that I looked so much like him, like I was looking at a mirror of my future. I wanted to believe that he truly thought my clan was enough of a bribe to make me bend to him, but deep down I knew he didn’t take me so lightly. The alternative that came to mind was too horrific for me to think of though, and I pushed it away. He couldn’t.

But then she appeared by his side, not bound, not gagged, not looking in the pitiful health of my former clan members. She stood by his side in her gear, her fighting gear, a look of cold indifference on her face, a terrible mask that hid the features I loved. Her grey eyes stared out like a ghost’s, her body relaxed even though she stood next to a devil. She spun the small gold ring on her finger, the one that had a permanent home on her pinky, just like she had done so often back when I knew her, back when we were partners. That small gesture, that tiny habit of hers proved to me it was her, not an illusion, not a trick of my father’s power on my mind, it was really Jordan standing with him, standing close to him. My stomach dropped.

Her eyes rose to mine and I prayed I would see something familiar there, some hint that this was her plan, that she was still the woman I knew, admired, but there was nothing, nothing but gaping holes. Her eyes showed me that she had lost her soul, given it to the Collector, just like Juda had, just like so many others who sought power. My heart ached for her, for what she must have gone through. I should have been there for her, I should have protected her. My heart felt as if it would fold in on itself, as if it would harden into a stone in my chest and crumble to sand, as if it were so cold it would freeze the very blood in my veins. I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t look at her, yet I couldn’t drag my eyes away either.

 _Jordan, my Jordan, but she’s his now_.

The thought jolted me back to the present, steeling my reserve. He would not win. He had taken everything from me, but he still would not win.

“Now I ask you again son, will you join me? Will you come back home?”

Even his voice made my stomach constrict, his smile, his eyes, his hand on Jordan’s shoulder. Everything about him made me wish I could kill him, wish I could find a way to be stronger than him, if only for a moment, that was all I would need.

“No.”

I saw Kael’s shoulders relax at my reply, as he let out a breath he had been holding in anticipation, hoping my answer wouldn’t change because of Jordan’s presence.

“I’m sorry to hear that, but I expected it. You have a lot of anger towards me, I understand.”

His voice was smooth and calming now, like he was apologizing, like he wanted me to know he didn’t blame me for being his prodigal son. As if I wanted his forgiveness, his understanding. As if his opinion held any kind of weight with me. I hated him more than was possible, more than one man’s heart could house. I would give anything to be able to kill him. I would sacrifice myself, my soul if I had one, just to see him burn, to see him suffer.

Jordan took three steps forward, her grey eyes on me the whole time, before she stopped behind Nevaeh, a knife in her hand. She looked back at my father and he gave her a nod and then I saw the point of the knife through the front of Nevaeh’s shirt, heard her sharp exhale, a sound of shock and dismay and pain. And then she looked up at me, but her eyes didn’t hold the hate I thought they would, she looked sad, sorry. She looked softer than I had ever seen her. She looked like the woman she should have been if her family, her sister, hadn’t been torn away from her, if the world hadn’t hardened her. Then the light left her beautiful eyes and she fell, a red pool spreading over the polished tile beneath her. The same tile I had washed my mother’s blood from when I was a child.

Kael continued to stare at the ground in front of him, not acknowledging the blood soaking into the knees of his jeans on the floor, but I saw the shine of tears on his cheeks. I couldn’t imagine the devastation he was feeling, the loss of his sister, the woman he had vowed to protect so many years ago when she joined us. He had put her back together, and now she was lying dead next to him. Because of me. I never understood how he could be so patient with her, so kind and loving, so forgiving of all her faults, but now I understood. The only small grace I could think of was that he would join her soon. He wouldn’t have to feel this pain for long. If anyone deserved Heaven, my brother did.

“Gabriel, I don’t want to hurt your family, I really don’t. But I need you to stand with me. You have no idea what is coming. I need you by my side. I want you by my side.”

I wished I could say yes, to spare my brother, but I knew I couldn’t. He wouldn’t want his life if it meant so many others would lose theirs, if it meant I would live as a weapon, a monster, once more. He wouldn’t want me to be selfish and spare him. He wouldn’t be able to live knowing the reason he was still breathing had come at such a high cost. I wished I could tell him how much I cared for him, how much he had meant to me over the years. I wished he knew that he was the reason I wasn’t the man my father wanted me to be, that he had always been a guiding light to me, an example of kindness, of understanding, of a gentle soul, a good man.

“I’m sorry, Kael. I never wanted you or Nevaeh to be a part of this. I’m so sorry, I love you, please know I never meant to hurt you by keeping my secrets. I thought I was protecting you. I’m so sorry, I love you, brother.”

I could feel the tears in my throat, choking out the words, making my voice waver as Jordan stepped behind Kael. I was screaming at her in my mind, trying to call any connection I may still have to her, to stop, to not do this, to remember that she loved Kael too, that he had been her savior in our clan, that he had been there for her, her advocate and friend, through it all. But there was nothing in her eyes, no spark of any remorse, any emotion.

Instead of any reaction from Jordan, Kael looked up, his eyes meeting mine. His mouth opened, but no sound came out, I could read his lips though, see the words he wanted to say, but couldn’t voice.

_I forgive you, brother._

I didn’t remember opening my mouth, or even thinking of words to say, the first realization I had that I was even speaking was when I heard my own cracked voice pleading with Jordan, begging for her to stop, telling her she didn’t have to do this, she didn’t have to murder her friends, to listen to my father, to do what he said. That anything he had done to her, anything he had threatened couldn’t be worth what she was about to do. But it was no use, she wasn’t there anymore. Maybe she hadn’t been for a long time.

_Jordan, please, please don’t. Let him go, don’t do this. Please, Angel, please!_

The blade was still tinged in Nevaeh’s blood, and it left a red smear where Jordan placed it against Kael’s throat, but he didn’t move, didn’t flinch, his body didn’t even tense, his only movement was a quick flick of his eyes down to Nevaeh’s body at his side. Then he closed his eyes, his lips moving silently, as if he was praying, his long hair hiding most of his tearstained face.

My father wore a wide smile, giddy like a child’s as his eyes tracked the slow movement of Jordan’s knife. She didn’t cut him quickly, but instead inched the blade across his skin, slowly splitting it, cutting deeper the further along she went. Kael finally tensed when she was halfway across, his arms becoming rigid, his jaw clenched, his face pained, and then I couldn’t watch anymore. I stared down at the ground instead, dropping to my knees when my legs felt too weak to hold me. The only things I loved in this world were destroyed, two dead and one broken beyond repair. Everything I had ever built up, everything I had ever cared about was shattered, and it was my fault.

I felt a hand on my shoulder then, one I knew well, but I didn’t have the strength to move away from him.

“My son, you can have her, she isn’t lost yet. You can save her, she can be yours, all you have to do is be my son again, stay with me, stand with me. I’m not asking anything beyond you, and I’m willing to give you anything you want, any luxury. And her, she will be yours, finally yours, completely and forever. You can have your Pair, your Twin, the only one in this world made for you. You can save her. All you have to do is join me.”

Everything in me wanted to say yes, every part of me screamed it, but I couldn’t, I couldn’t let him win after everything he had done. Once and for all I could end this, this chase, this game he played to try and get me. He had nothing else to barter with, he had nothing to use against me, it was all already gone.

“Burn in Hell.”

I wished my voice could have been stronger than a whisper, but it was choked by my pain. I wanted to die. I couldn’t defeat my father, I couldn’t save anyone. All I could do was make sure I never joined him, never added my power to his. I wanted it to be over so badly, I wanted to be at peace. Even Hell sounded better than the life I had lived. I never should have been created.

His hand disappeared from my shoulder and when I looked up he was back with Jordan, facing her with a solemn look on his face. He raised his hand to brush against her cheek, a fatherly gesture of love and care that made me sick. She handed him the knife, now stained with both Kael and Nevaeh’s blood and he took it lightly from her grasp.

I realized what he was doing a moment too late, unable to do anything but watch in horror as he raised the blade to her heart, angled up from her ribs. He turned his face to me, his voice echoing in my mind.

_You could have saved her._

I woke up shaking, a choked noise coming from my mouth, wracking sobs that sounded even louder reverberating in the warehouse’s cavernous room. I was on my hands and knees on the floor, just as I had been by the end of my dream, the cot’s thin sheet half off the bed. I bit down on my jaw, grinding my teeth together until I could steady my breaths, resting my forehead on the floor, trying to focus on the cool ground beneath me instead of the sick feeling in my stomach and the spinning walls around me.

When I finally regained control of myself my mind was reeling. Was that a vision? Was that my clan’s fate, my Pair’s fate? Was that the future we all would find together, the next time I would see them? No, it didn’t feel like a vision, it was something else, just a dream, just a nightmare, just a terrible, terrible nightmare.

Even so, I couldn’t fall back asleep, even just the thought of it seemed unreasonable. Instead I sat on the floor, my back against the cot’s metal frame, head in my hands, pleading with whatever was out there to help me, to protect my clan, my Pair. Begging with whatever higher power there may be in the world to hear me, bartering, promising to do anything as long as my father never found my clan, never found Jordan.

I’d never believed much in Heaven or a god, I always figured they left the Earth to its own demise millennia ago, and I knew it was foolish for me to be talking to the ceiling like I was, praying to it. I knew even if Heaven was there and had some power, even if its maker could listen, he wouldn’t, not to someone like me, not to someone already damned, but I called to them regardless. I begged for Heaven to allow anything to happen to me, as long as my family was safe, as long as Jordan was safe. Kael had always believed there was a god, that there was someone watching, someone helping, and if that was true, if my brother had been right, then now was the time. I prayed that now was the time.

 


End file.
